Malfoy Twins Together Again
by Reigning Devil
Summary: Dracaena and Draco were seperated years ago and had to live seperate lives while staying together. Now they're back and the world will never be the same again. Voldemort doesn't have a hope. HD slash, Bill WeasleyOC
1. Default Chapter

'Bill. Bill where are you? Ugh', the men scattered around the base of the great pyramid chuckled quietly to themselves as they heard the exasperated the cry. Sighing to herself the girl made her way down the side of the massive structure, unlike all of the others she needed no balancing spells or unnecessary arm waving to walk up or down the steep slope, she had an innate sense of balance that everyone around her envied. A stray breeze wrapped itself around her as she descended, lifting the ends of her strange hair. While the main body of her hair was a rich brown, she also had a section of emerald green, a section of sapphire blue, molten silver, amethyst, and pearl. The green and sapphire were by her temples, silver and pearl were slightly farther back, and amethyst was at the centre of the back of her head, to soften the startling effect of these varied colours individual strands were dyed the five different colours all over her head. Right now this amazing hair was plaited and the stray parts at her forehead were kept back by a plain black bandana. Her grey eyes were shining with exasperated amusement as she finished her descent; waving to her friends as she passed them the fifteen-year-old strode towards the tent she shared with her boyfriend Bill Weasley, and where he was undoubtedly hiding from her at that particular moment. Completely forgotten by everyone around him in the wake of the girls passing a young man slipped onto the sandy, rocky floor as he fell the last few metres of the journey down the pyramid, landing in an undignified pile of limbs as the ten other assorted wizards gathered around him in a loose circle. They looked at him questioningly as he stood up and straightened himself out. Looking at the amused faces surrounding him the poor man looked down, shame-faced, although trying his best not to burst into laughter. 'Bill got a letter from his mother this morning, I couldn't find him, and as she always reads his mail anyway I gave it to her.' Looking up at the faces that were starting to slowly grasp the situation, 'It may not have been my best idea. His mother wanted to know when he was going to be back for the summer, and whether he was going to be bring his girlfriend along, 'that nice Fleur Delacour'.' As he said this, the unmistakeable sound of someone falling off of a comfy chair onto a hard floor was heard, and they all winced. That was one of her favourite tactics, one that everyone who had ever made her mad had experienced. Get them onto the floor at a disadvantage to you and half the battle is already one, the other half is just scaring them into submission, as a consequence no one made her mad anymore. Alternating between grimacing and laughter they all went back to work, keeping an ear out for sounds of bloodshed.

Inside the tent a young man was leaning over his desk, head resting on his crossed arms, his long red ponytail had fallen over his shoulder and he was obviously deep in thought. 'What the hell is this?' was all the warning he had before his obviously angry girlfriend appeared before him and slammed a piece of parchment down a few centimetres from the top of his head. Jerking upright at this unexpected intrusion to his solitude he jerked upwards and his chair toppled over and he landed on his back staring up at a very irate witch. He started to ask her what she was talking about when he was cut off by a piece of parchment fluttering on to his face. Snatching it up quickly he pulled himself into a sitting position and read the letter. His face fell as he realised what the problem was. 'Um, this is a letter. From my mother. About me going home for the summer.' It was very unusual for Bill to be in this situation, he was usually cool, calm and collected, the one who always knew what to do and how to go about it. 'Look, Dee, babe, there is a very reasonable explanation for this.' The part of Bill's mind that wasn't desperately trying to find a way to smooth over this situation was amazed at how this woman, girl even, could reduce him to absolute gibberish. Personally he thought it was the aura she radiated, through the combination of her magical hair, her stormy eyes, the way she walked, the confidence and the essence that was undeniably **her**. Although there always seemed to be something missing, as though when you looked at her there was something off kilter, like this wasn't how it was supposed to be. But he still loved her, with all his heart, and no matter how hard the majority of his brain was working, he couldn't think of a way out of this that wasn't going to hurt her. 'When you first came out to this site you were a fourteen-year-old-girl with pale skin and seemingly completely unsuited for this life. Then after a few days, I left to go to Hogwarts for the TriWizard, and when I came back you were different, every man in this camp was under your spell and your confidence had grown. You were smart and funny and gorgeous, but every guy you met was after you and I had met Fleur at Hogwarts, but then after about six months, it changed.' He paused then, not wanting to mention this part because of the pain he knew it caused her. 'After that mess with Aaron and your brother not being able to come out here you came to me, and I looked after you, I beat the crap out of a guy whose I've known for yeas. I know that he turned out to be a jerk and I could have killed him for what he did to you, but he was still a mate. Then the night after that you were patching me up and things just got a bit heavy. I wanted to tell myself that you were only fifteen and I was with Fleur but I couldn't. You were just too gorgeous and I loved you, I only realised it that night. But then you told me not to tell my family about you, and I didn't understand that but I did what you wanted, but I couldn't exactly tell my family that I had broken up with a girl like Fleur for absolutely no reason, could I? It just seemed easier to be with you and pretend with Fleur.'

Slowly standing up and leaning on his desk and reached his hand out and tucked a stray piece of emerald hair behind her ear. But his had fell when she stepped away from him. 'No, no its not okay, I trusted you, I told you that there were things about me no one but my family could know but I told you everything else. You are one of the only two people I trust in the world but you betrayed me.' Bill took a few steps towards her, stopping only when he realised that she was backing away with each step he took. 'Look, Bill, just don't okay. I love you. That's the fist time I've said that you know, I mean you knew I did, but I've never said that to anyone but my brother, and I should never have fallen in love with you. I got a letter from by brother yesterday, situations have changed and I can go back to England and go to school with him. And I'm going to go. Bye.' Almost reaching out to touch his hand, she faltered and turned and left the tent. Sprinting away in the middle of a crowd of workers who had gathered at the first sound of her tears. Suddenly their attention was drawn back to the tent as the distraught figure of their calm head of operations ran out, 'Dee, Dee, don't go, please. Dee!!' It was a scream filled with unimaginable heartache, pain all of them hoped never to experience, when she didn't turn, he sank down onto his knees, head in his hands. Completely oblivious to those surrounding him who were still completely in the dark about what was going on. All Bill could focus on was the fact that the love of his life had just walked away from him because he was a stupid git who couldn't break up with his own girlfriend.

'Dee, Dee what are you doing? Dee, Dee will you stop moving, thank you.' When the man running behind her saw that she wasn't stopping he dashed forward and rugby tackled her to the ground. 'Aaahhh, Christ Mark, what in hell do you think you are doing.' Pushing the irate blond off of her Dee stood up and dusted the desert sand off of her trousers. While Mark stood there trying to get his breath back she took the bandana out of her hair and bent over, shaking out all the little fragments that had got caught up in her jewelled hair. Flipping her hair back and standing up straight and glaring at the man who had accosted her. Cowering under the force of her gaze, 'Look, Dee, I don't know what Bill did, but you don't have to leave. You two are perfect together, you can work through whatever this is.' He was practically pleading with her, their team had never worked as well and recovered as much treasure as they had since this teenage girl had joined the crew. Reaching out she smoothed down his hair that had gone every which way after his mad dive. 'No Mark, we can't. He's been cheating on me. Or more to the point he has been cheating on his girlfriend of two years, with me, his mistress, is that what you should call it, anyway, his other woman of one year. Don't you get it Mark, he never broke up with her, he told me that he had, that he had finished with her, that he wanted to be with me. And he tells me this when he's getting letters from his family asking if he's going to bring Fleur back for the summer.' She was breathing hard at the end of her tirade and her eyes were shining with tears she was unwilling to shed, in public or private. Seeing that Mark now didn't know what to say she started to speak again. 'You see, I can't stay, but don't worry, I'll be fine. My brother owled me a few days ago, circumstances have changed and I can go back to England. I'm going back to live with my family and I'm even going to go to school. It's not even all Bill, I've wanted to go back for a long time and now I can, I miss by brother, my mother, my friends. I'll keep in touch with you all, I promise.' Reaching out she hugged him then bent to pick up the bag that she kept packed all the time considering how often they had to move the camp. 'I've got a portkey that he sent me. I really have to be going. I love you guys, you'll tell them all that wont you, and give them a hug from me.' Seeing the look on his face at the prospect of having to tell the fifteen other men in the camp the she loved them, and give them hugs from her as well she laughed and threw her bag over her shoulder. 'Now go back to camp because I tend to turn green when I'm travelling using portkeys, and it's not a very fun or pretty experience and I don't want people to see it, now go.' Laughing she hugged him one last time with promises to write and watched as he walked back to camp, waving each time he looked back at her over his shoulder. When he had finally disappeared from sight she sighed and let her head fall forward, leaving her hair to form curtains for her face. As she stood there wisps of smoke appeared at her feet and twined around her legs, emerald, sapphire, silver, pearl and amethyst. The exact same shades as the colours in her hair. After a few seconds the smoke completely obscured her and then there was a soft pop and the smoke disappeared, Dee along with it.

With a soft pop Dee materialised in the same manner as she dematerialised, except instead of a desert she was now standing in a very grand hallway. Dark wood panelling surrounded her and at one end of the hallway there was a long sweeping stairway, plush red carpeting and tall, lush green plants. Suddenly she noticed a loss of weight in her right hand and realised that while she had been contemplating her surroundings a house elf had appeared and probably taken her bag up to her room, either that or taken everything to be washed, or burned. Things got pretty dusty in Egypt, and Dee doubted that anything she had brought with her would meet her mother's approval, or her brother's for that matter, come to think of it, she wouldn't mind something different. Shaking her head mentally she tried to stop her mind waffling on about totally unrelated subjects when she was about to see the two people she loved most in the world, that is if you didn't count Bill anymore, which she was trying very hard not to do. But first things first, walking over to the small writing table that was kept in the entrance hall she opened a drawer and pulled out a polished ebony box embossed with her family crest. Opening the box she retrieved a silver ring. It was formed of five strands of silver, each about two millimetres in diameter, at the top, caught in between the strands was the same crest as on the box. Running her thumb over for a few seconds she placed the crest on the middle finger of her right hand and walked towards a small conservatory. As she walked she seemed to be surrounded by a strange rippling effect. Golden skin lightened, grey eyes began the change to liquid silver, and soft brown hair bleached to become silver blond.

The conservatories inhabitants looked up when she walked through the door. Her mother looked up from her book and her brother from what appeared to be holiday homework. The tall blond woman's breath caught in her throat when she saw Dee and the teenage boy stood and grabbed his sister. Pulling her into a long delayed welcome home hug, the two were soon joined by their mother who wrapped her arms around the two, quietly crying tears of joy. 'I'm home, Merlin I've missed you two, Mother, Draco, Gods I've missed you both so much. It had finally happened, the Malfoy twins were back together. Look out England.

'Oh my dragons. Finally back together again.' Tears falling rapidly from her eyes Narcissa gave into a show of emotion that was forbidden for Malfoys and broke down into tears again, sobbing she ran smoothed down her daughters hair and reached over and pulled her son into position beside her. Looking at her two children. 'Draconis and Dracaena, oh lords it's been so long Drey. We thought you would never be able to come back. Now you two stay here and get reacquainted, I'm going to go down to the kitchens and tell Jacques to make your favourite dinner. Oh.' With fresh tears springing from her eyes Narcissa left the room and headed to the kitchens, leaving the now silent twins to face each other after three years apart.

Except for the obvious difference in the fact that one was male and the other was female they really were incredibly similar. Draco was a few inches taller than Drey; he stood at roughly 5 feet 11 inches, where as she stood at only 5 feet 6 inches. His body was slim but strong; a lifetime of flying and playing seeker had honed his body. His platinum hair was left un-gelled with strands falling across his eyes; in the presence of his sister the characteristics he had o hide from his father were coming back stronger. His ivory skin seemed to inherit a glow giving him an unearthly look matched only by his sister, his eyes were becoming more silver, brighter, just like hers, and colours were starting to shine through his hair, just like Drey had, five colours that held so much meaning for them. His aristocratic features twitched into a loving smile as he observed his sister. Her eyes were just settling at their original silver, the perfect match to his, her skin still had a gold tint to it, but that was quickly fading, leaving her skin the creamy ivory that every member of their family had. The five colours were still as strong as ever, she obviously hadn't hid those, but the rest of her hair was only just reaching its previous platinum colour, identical to his. Her features moulded themselves into a smirk that looked like the mirror image of the one adorning his lips.

'He's finally gone then.'

'Yeah, he got locked up in Azkaban after that mess at the department of mysteries.'

'Good.' The entire conversation about the fate of their father had taken place in emotionless voices, occupying the time it took for their hidden appearances to shine through. Both of them could feel it when they finally reverted back to normal. And just like that Drey leapt forward into her brother's arms, and he lifted her up and swung her around, both of them laughing and cheering. All of a sudden they were distracted from their celebration by the loud POP signalling the entrance of a house elf. Bowing low in respect to the true faces of his master and mistress he informed them that dinner was ready. Just as he was about to click his fingers and disappear back to the kitchens Drey jumped out of Draco's arms and picked him up, swung him around and kissed him on the cheek. Flushing pink Jacques shook his head and watched as Draco grabbed her hand and the two of them ran to the dining room. Shaking his head he thought as he rematerialised back in the kitchens that life in Malfoy Manor was going to be a lot different from now on. Instead of the screams of pain that were the result of one of Lucius's rampages, or just him having a normal day, there would be laughter and happiness. And Master Draco would be able to let go of the Malfoy façade, at least when he was a home, Hogwarts was a different matter entirely.

It had been three days since Drey had returned to England and in that time Drey and Draco had not left each others side. As the summer was warm they both slept outside in hammocks. Just like when they were little, the days were spent running around the Manor and the grounds, behaving like the children they had never had been forbidden to be. In that three-day span Draco told her everything that had happened in the six years she had been away. Six long years when the only contact she had had with him, her mother had been frequent letters or short conversations in the fire, or the three visits they had managed to make. Draco told her all about Hogwarts, the school she would be going to when the next term started. All about the 'Golden Trio' and how bloody annoying they were. And in return Drey told him all about the places she'd been and the things she'd learnt. She told him all about the dig she'd been on in Egypt for the last year, she told him all about Aaron, how he'd drugged her and beat her, would have raped her if it hadn't been for Bill. Bill. That was the one thing he seemed to have the most trouble accepting. After she'd stopped him from cursing everything in sight at the mention of Aaron and what he'd done. He started blowing things up, literally, when he heard that she'd been dating a Weasley, apparently one of the biggest problems he, and consequently she, had at school was the Weasleys. But when she told him about how he had been cheating on her with Fleur, that's when he really blew up, along with lots of the surrounding landscape, that was the real problem with their kind of magic, it was too closely intertwined with their emotions. But the stories were past, and now they were planning how to spend the last two weeks of the summer before they went to Hogwarts. 'We'll have to go to Diagon Alley at some point to get the supplies we'll need for school at some point. But we don't need to bother about that just yet. Mother's gotten in touch with Dumbledore, told him you're coming, and the letters should be coming in the next few days.' Pausing Draco took a bite out of the rich chocolate cake before him and leant back on the soft black chaise-lounge. Drey was sitting on the marbled floor, leaning against the side of the chaise-lounge, painting her nails a pearlescent colour.

'When are we going to see the rest of the court, I really missed them all when I was away. And they don't know I'm back yet so we could surprise them.' Giggling at the thought Drey twisted her head up to look at her twin. 'We could ask them all round for the rest of the summer if you want, have some time together, then go to Diagon Alley together, then we could spend the last few days in London, stay in one of the hotels before school.' He had a questioning look on his face as he told her the plan. Nodding enthusiastically stole the last bit of his cake and ran off into the house, up to the owl room to write the letters they needed to send to their court. She nearly bowled over several house elves as she ran shrieking from her brother. But the elves didn't mind, the King and Queen were back together and they wouldn't change it for the world.

'Draco. Drakey darling where are you?' Snarling Draco leaned over the balcony and whispered under his breath. Suddenly Pansy Parkinson shot up into the air and halted suddenly, staring into the very annoyed face of one Draco Malfoy. She started yelling at him and then stopped, something was different, but she couldn't quite see what it was. Ignoring her when she started shouting he swung his leg over the banister and stepped out onto thin air and gently lowered himself and Pansy to the floor, still ignoring her ranting about the impoliteness of yanking someone off of the ground and into the air. When they reached the ground the three boys standing there noticed that something was different about their friend but for the life of them they couldn't see what. 'Why don't we go swimming down at the cove?' he asked them, seeing them nod, still trying to work out what was wrong. A few minutes later they were walking down rocky stairs towards a calm beach and ocean. They were laden down with towels and picnic baskets. Suddenly Pansy, Greg, Vince and Blaise stopped, all smashing into each other. 'His hair.' Whispered Pansy. 'His eyes.' Stated Blaise. 'Drey' came from Vince and Greg. For there, lying on a white beach towel in a silver and black string bikini that showed off far too much ivory skin for her brothers taste was Dracaena. Screeching Pansy dropped everything she was carrying and ran over to the towel and falling on top of Drey and for the next five minutes the two were jumping up and down holding onto each others arms, jumping up and down and laughing and crying, then Drey noticed the boys and ran over and started hugging and kissing each of them.

Within half an hour the six friends were sprawled over towels laughing, drinking butterbeer and catching up on old times. Suddenly the conversation took a serious turn. 'Drey, are you really back for good?' asked Goyle, everyone else stopped talking and paid attention to the two. 'Yeah, I am, Lucius is the one who sent me away, saying that I had to learn to control my other talents. But now he's in Azkaban I see no reason to be away from my family.' Ducking her head shyly, Drey swallowed another mouthful of butterbeer, uncomfortable with showing just how much she cared about these people. These six were usually comfortable enough to show their emotions for each other, but some times the need to guard their feelings still crept up on them. Especially after six years of having to create a new persona, separate, but still a part of, her two Malfoy lives. 'In that case, we'd like to truly be your court again.' That came from Pansy, and seeing the three boys nod in agreement was enough to make the twins descend on them in another hugging frenzy. Once they'd calmed down they all got into the right places for the initiation spell. Pansy, Greg, Vince and Blaise were kneeling on the sand. Standing before them were Draco and Drey, reaching out they placed a hand on each forehead and began to speak.

La famille et les amis vous êtes la limite à nous par le sang et par l'amour. Les membres de notre tribunal vous vous tiendrez avec nous, le combat avec nous et habite avec nous. Les émeraudes, le saphir, et améthyste, joindre la perle et l'argent. Joindre le Roi et la Reine.

This was the ancient binding spell that the old Kings and Queens in France used to ensure their courts loyalty. 'Family and friends you are bound to us by blood and by love. Members of our court you will stand with us, fight with us and live with us. Emeralds, sapphire and amethyst, join the pearl and silver. Join the King and Queen.' As soon as their spell was finished the strands of colour in their hands had streams of smoke coming from them. The emerald streams curled around Vince and Greg, sapphire around Blaise, amethyst around Pansy. Each of them suddenly had a section of the appropriate colour by their left temple. The jewel colours were their own choice, and the choice of their court.

They were connected now, the court would follow the twins to death, but the twins would also die for their court.

Everybody was prejudiced about the Slytherins, even the teachers at Hogwarts and the great Albus Dumbledore. All because of a few evil wizards who happened to have been in that house, when will they see that it is the wizards personal choices that make him evil, not his house or 'light or dark' spells. But having the oldest pureblood families bowing down to a half-blood stopped with this generation. The King and Queen of Slytherin were back, even though Drey had never been to Hogwarts. It was time to show Voldemort and their parents exactly what was expected of purebloods.

Hi everybody who's reading this, this is the first thing I have ever posted so please, please, please review.


	2. The Leaky Cauldron

I own nothing but Dracaena

'Pansy will you hurry up, if you're not down here in five minutes we're going without you.' Exasperated Blaise sank down onto the floor with a boneless grace and leant on the wall. Laughing the other boys copied his actions and fell to the floor while Drey just looked up from her magazine and smiled. A few seconds there was a cry of 'Coming' from the upstairs and then Pansy minced her way down the grand stairs. Upon seeing her the other five tried their hardest not to burst in to hysterical laughter, it appeared that Pansy was taking her restored role in the court seriously. Along with the amethyst steak in her hair she was dressed in a purple fitted shirt with black pinstripes, purple trousers, also with black pinstripes, an amethyst belt and purple shoes. Although all of the others were wearing colours that signified their colours they hadn't taken it quite that far. Crabbe and Goyle were both wearing black jeans and different shirts made up of different greens. Blaise was wearing a sapphire shirt open over a white wife-beater that showed off his muscle and black trousers. It was Drey and Draco that really looked impressive, as was only befitting for royalty. Draco was wearing an incredibly tight pair of black leather trousers and dragon hide boots and a silver mesh wife-beater. Drey had on a micro-mini black leather skirt and a pearl top that cut off several inches above her waist but had very long sleeves that went down to her fingertips, but they were also very wide, falling almost to her knees. They had all dressed this way for a reason; this was the first time Drey was going to be seen outside of Malfoy Manor in six years, and since the whole court was back, they needed to make the right impression. After they had all assimilated each other's appearances and given their approval, they all gathered round into the positions they wanted to be in when arriving at the Leaky Cauldron. All of their clothes and other possessions that they were taking to school with them had been put into the charge of Narcissa and the house elves who would ensure that everything got onboard the train, so that all they had to worry about was them selves and the supplies they brought at Diagon Alley. Draco and Drey were standing next to each other and Blaise was standing next to, but slightly behind, Drey, and Vince was in the same position by Draco, Pansy and Greg were next to, but slightly behind, the other two. Nodding goodbye to Narcissa who had just entered the hall to watch them leave they schooled their faces into the usual Slytherin masks of superior indifference. As soon as they had, the familiar swirls of smoke appeared and coiled around all of them, and with a soft pop, they were gone.

Silence reigned in the small, dingy wizard pub known as the Leaky Cauldron when the first tendrils of coloured smoke appeared. Conversations stopped and drinks were put down on tables and forgotten. Everyone tensed in case this was some attack by the You-Know-Who. That thought was especially prominent at a table hidden over in a far dark corner. Seated at this table were eight red heads, one brown and one black. Arthur, Molly, Charlie, Bill, Fred, George, Ron and Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter. The large family, along with its adopted members were staying at the Leaky Cauldron before they went back to school. It was a very rare occasion for the two oldest Weasleys to be at home for a long period of time, but there was a good reason for this time. Bill and Charlie were going back to Hogwarts. As teachers, if you could believe it. Bill was going to be working with Professor Flitwick, helping to teach the kids about dangerous curses, and Charlie was going to be teaching Care of Magical Creatures seeing as Hagrid was away on Business for Dumbledore.

When they saw the multicoloured smoke appear in midair the first thought was that Voldemort was attacking, except for Bill, that was his second thought, his first thought was that the smoke was the same colour as Dee's hair. The whole table stood was moved over to join the rapidly forming circle around the smoke, Mrs Weasley was trying to convince Ron, Hermione and Harry to get behind them, just in case it was an attack. They of course weren't listening to her and the whole family was allowed through to the front of the group of spectators.

POP, the smoke disappeared and jaws dropped when they saw who was standing there. 'Malfoy' Ron spit out in a tone filled with venom, everyone looked at the blonde boy and realised that it was in fact, and that was when they realised just who the girl standing next to him was. Dracaena Malfoy, as soon as that realisation sunk in everyone even remotely related to Slytherin bowed over a little at the waist, even Severus Snape, who had been brooding over in a corner. The whole group looked around at the people staring at them and the two Malfoys smirked coldly before the girl turned around and spoke to a blond girl dressed in purple. The Golden Trio were trying to work out who the people with Malfoy could be Ron already knew who the girl was, you couldn't grow up in the wizarding world without knowing about those twins. It was Harry who worked out that the boys in green were Crabbe and Goyle, and Hermione nearly had a heart attack when she realised that the boy in blue was Blaise Zabini and the girl in purple who was just retrieving a couple of room key from Tom was Pansy Parkinson. It was Bill who had the biggest shock though. No one else had that gorgeous figure or that bone structure or that hair, but there was no possible way that his Dee, his soft, loving, caring Dee, could be the Malfoy twin.

When Pansy rejoined the group Draco stared at the wizards and witches standing in front of him and after they shuffled out of the way he led his group through. They were walking right past the Weasleys and the Golden Trio so Drey walked right past Bill, seeing his shell-shocked face she paused for a moment and lifted on her toes to put her mouth by his ear, 'It told you there were things about my past that you wouldn't like.' She lowered herself back to her normal height and smirked at him before continuing on her way. Then he was subjected to the alternate smirks or glares of the four others passing by him, swallowing he realised with a dreadful clarity that Dee, (or Dracaena) had told the members of her court, (and judging from the hair and the stories that is what they were) that he had been cheating on her. It looked like Hogwarts was going to be interesting.

Later that evening the court was sitting up in room 6 of the Leaky Cauldron; they were all laughing and generally having a good time on the last night before they went back to school. They were interrupted however when there was a huge crash against the wall they shared with room 4. Immediately they were all standing with wands in hand, they lowered their wands however when they realised that it was just the people in the next room bulling at each other. Innately curious about their surroundings and any possible threats, Draco nodded when Drey looked at him questioningly. Cupping her hands in front of her she closed her eyes and concentrated, and then out of the pearl smoke that had gathered in her hands came a picture, releasing it from her hold if grew and everyone seated themselves to watch the drama.

'Bill Weasley you are not going to keep avoiding me! What on earth did that blond hussy say to you earlier?' Drey shot up straight from where she had been sprawled over the bed when she heard herself described as a hussy. 'Mum, it's nothing, will you just leave it.' Biting her lip Drey looked a bit worried, she'd never heard Bill sound like that, it was as though he was going to burst into tears, but he was so angry at the same time. 'Mum's got a point though mate, I mean you're going to be at Hogwarts and we can't afford any trouble with Death Eater families.' The eavesdroppers all looked at each other pretending to be aghast and then fell about laughing, it really was funny what a last name could bring you. They sobered up when the people of the picture silenced and looked quizzically at the wall connecting their rooms.

Shaking his head, as though getting rid of a bad thought Bill finally lost his cool. 'Look it's none of your bloody business what she did or didn't say to me.' He paused breathing hard from the force of the volume he'd been yelling at. He opened his mouth as though he was going to say more, then closed it and shook his head again before walking out of the room. But just before he left he muttered something under his breath. 'What'd he say Hermione dear?' That was Mrs Weasley, Hermione had been standing closest to Bill that any of the rest of them, 'It sounded like 'She's not a Death Eater' but I'm not sure.'

'Well of course it's not that. She's a Malfoy, one of the Malfoy twins, definitely going to be a Slytherin, and did you see her earlier, strutting around liked she owned the place with that smirk. She's got Death Eater all over her.' Slowly Draco absorbed the pictures smoke into his palm. No one smoke, they could all tell there was something wrong with Drey. 'I'll be back in a while guys, I've just got something to do.' They all nodded as the blond girl got off of the bed and walked over to the door. And they remained that way once she had left, and for several more minutes as they all thought about what they had heard, and how hard it would be to separate themselves and the true meanings of their names from the mess their parents had made of them.

Meanwhile once she had left the room Drey leaned her head back against the wall, deep in thought for a few seconds before stretching out her senses and locating Bill. Once she found him she followed the wake of his aura and found him sitting in a small bay window hidden from the world by worn red velvet curtains. Taking several deep breaths to calm herself she opened the curtains and seated herself opposite his lean frame on the window sill, she put her hand on his ankle and rubbed it gently, calming him the way only she was able to.

'Why didn't you ever tell me you were a Malfoy?' His voice was brimming over with hurt and it brought tears to her eyes knowing that she had caused it because she truly did love him. 'What would you have done if I had? Besides no one could know. Lucius didn't know where I was exactly and that's how we wanted to keep it. All the stories about my father are true. He is a brutal, murdering, pig-headed bastard.' She stopped when she heard Bill snort, 'What?'

'Pig-headed, that's not exactly a word I thought would be associated with one of the coldest evilest wizards of all time, except You-Know-Who of course.' She was giggling now, and Bill was chuckling softly. It was such a ridiculous thing to be talking about at a time like this that they couldn't help it. But Drey stopped as soon as she remembered what she had to explain. 'Look my brother and I, we're different, our magic's different. We can use wand magic, but we can do other stuff as well. We can trace auras, call on ancient spirits and Gods, cast spells without a wand, blow up demons. That's fun, they all go boom.' Getting herself back on track she continued her explanation. 'Everybody knew about us, the Malfoy twins and their court. We claimed them as our court as soon as they understood it, because we're rulers, ancient magic users. That's what these colours signify. Emerald for the protectors, and sapphire is the advisor for silver, amethyst the advisor for pearl. Father knew that if we went to Hogwarts our power and our court would grow. And we would be more powerful that Voldemort, lots more. So he split us up, sent Draco to Hogwarts and me halfway across the world. We're telepathic so what he learnt I learnt and vice versa.' Throughout her whole story Drey had been focused on the window, not looking at the man opposite her. She couldn't see him, so when she felt a hand on her arm she jumped. She turned her head and came face to face with a the love of her life. But then she couldn't think anymore because his soft lips had lowered to hers and she was a little busy. Pulling away from him gently she smiled and got a malicious glint in her eye, she jumped to her feet and pulled him after her. 'Come on, I want you to meet my family.' Laughing she dragged Bill off looking as though he was going to be fed to the lions.

'Oh Draco, I brought some one to see you.' The saccharine sweet voice that was just brimming over with fake innocence was attached to the blond head that poked around the door to smile at her friends within. The door opened fully and she walked in, dragging a tall red head who looked very apprehensive at entering a room filled with wizards and witches who were the next generation of known Death Eaters. And the smirks that occupied the face of each and every one of them, including Drey, weren't making him feel any better. His face turned a colour to match his hair when he was pushed onto a chair and she folded herself onto his lap. 'So Pansy, what'd you think?'

'Not bad' she replied, getting up and circling the chair like a shark. When the court saw Bill's face they all tried to remain serious but they just couldn't do it and they all fell about laughing, Bill joining in after a few minutes. Suddenly Vince and Greg stood and lifted Drey clean out of the red heads lap, she was deposited on the floor where she sat with Pansy looking positively indignant and astounded, along with Pansy while her brother, Blaise, Crabbe and Goyle, read him the riot act about dating their little sister, and how although it was obvious by the way that she was acting that she had forgiven him. That did not mean, under any circumstances that they would not kick his ass into the next millennium if he ever hurt her again. Once Bill had sworn to each and every person in the room that he would never hurt her and that he would break up with fleur the second he got to a fire, because he didn't want to do it in a letter. Having that settled they got down to the real business of the evening, enjoying themselves, and celebrating the fixing of Drey's relationship.

Again I'm begging please review


	3. The Train

Thanks so much to –** Broken Sun **& **QueenNarca **for their great reviews, here's the third chapter for you.

"I still don't understand?" That was from Pansy, the two girls were sitting on a bed watching while the four guys were trying to move all the luggage into one space. For some reason they seemed to think that the two of them had brought too much in Diagon Alley yesterday. "Don't understand what?" Drey asked as she dispassionately watched her brother get clobbered by a book on elemental magic. "I don't understand how you and Bill got back together when you didn't even talk about the Fleur thing." It took a few seconds for Drey to translate Pansy's sentence as she was speaking around a huge multicoloured lollipop. "I knew that he was sorry about the whole thing, if that's a strong enough word. I mean he was crying and Bill Weasley doesn't cry. Once I explained the how I was why I never told anyone about my name and who I was, he just kissed me. And I knew that we were back together. God I can't believe how dumb that sounds. Besides there wasn't a lot of time to talk, if I'd stayed away too long Draco would have come looking and Merlin knows how that would have ended." They were thrown backwards by a loud clap of imploding air as their luggage shrunk to pocket size. Straightening they sorted out their hair, and once everyone was ready and looking suitably Slytherin they left the room and walked downstairs, out of the pub and into the black stretch limousine that was waiting for them outside. On their way they passed the Weasley brood, all with faces the same colour as their hair as they struggled with their trunks. The court passed by and smirked as they saw them; Ron seemed to have some very inventive curses stored in his brain judging by what they could hear.

"Kings Cross Station please", and off they went.

"Bloody Malfoys!" Ron started sputtering when he couldn't think of any more words to describe how awful they were. Bill laughed under his breath when he compared the group of friends he spent last night with to the manipulative creeps his brother was describing.

"Ron you shouldn't talk about people like that." His mother told to him absent-mindedly. "Harry agrees with me, dontcha Harry?" Turning to his best friend expecting immediate agreement he was surprised to find him staring at the door the Malfoy group had passed through on their way out. He was startled from his reverie when a finger poked his shoulder. "What. Oh God Ron, you're not still going on about how awful Malfoy is are you." To the surprise of everyone in their group he sounded angry at the accusation his friend was making. "Has it ever occurred to you Ron that you're doing is exactly the same as what you're doing to him? Making assumptions because of his name." With that Harry turned and got into the Ministry car that was waiting for them. And while the others who climbed in after him were either thinking of his outburst or what the new year would hold, Harry was wondering when Malfoy had got those muscles and the hair, and whether it was his reunion with his sister that had made his eyes so silver. He was also trying to decide what he was going to do about what he heard last night.

When Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys stepped onto Platform 9 and 3/4 they were astounded by the silence enveloping the platform. It seemed as though the twins and their court had come through here and left quite and impression.

Once the train had started on its way Harry caught Bills attention and gestured that he wanted to talk to him outside. They walked down the corridor a little way until they found an alcove and settled themselves into it. Bill was curious about what Harry wanted and Harry was wondering how to start. Just when Bill was about to ask what was going on Harry blurted out, "I heard you in Malfoy's room last night, are you really dating his sister?" He was staring straight at Bill when he asked, wanting to see what his reaction was. Bill turned completely white under his tan and his mind started to whip through possible explanations when he was interrupted, "It doesn't matter if you are or anything I'd just like to know how it started, I mean, I though all your family hated the Malfoys?" Sighing Bill leant on the windowsill and wondered where to start. "I didn't know she was a Malfoy when I met her, I only found that out last night. She came out to the site in Egypt and for a year she was my best friend, only then, things grew. We got together and I fell in love with her, only I never broke up with Fleur. About a week ago she found out, and she left me. But it doesn't matter that she's a Malfoy, I still love her, and she's forgiven me about Fleur and I've sent her a letter breaking up with her. Look, Harry, please don't tell the others, Charlie'll be okay but God knows what Ron and Mum'll do." His eyes were begging the boy in front of him. "Don't worry, I won't tell them, I know what Ron's like when he gets his teeth into something and he definitely won't like this."

"Harry, don't take this the wrong way or anything, but has something happened between you and Ron, you seem to be snapping at him a lot lately."

"Nothing's happened exactly, it's just that him and Hermione were crowding me so much after Sirius's death, they just kept asking if I was all right and wrapping me in cotton wool, and when they weren't doing that they were just so loud. And they still are, and all I want is quiet before I have to go and face Voldemort again." He was nearly crying at the end of his speech he was just so frustrated. Bill stared off into space for a few seconds thinking before he stood up and grabbed Harry's arms and started pulling him down the train.

"Where are we going?" Harry got out while trying not to trip over.

"You wanted quiet, but still with friends, right, people who'll leave you alone when you need it but still be there without crowding you? And you were talking about Drey, so you're going to meet her, I think her and the court might be just what you need." Harry opened his mouth aghast at the suggestion and tried to dig his heels into the floor but it didn't stop Bill.

When they reached the opposite end of the train Bill threw open a compartment door and pulled Harry inside before closing it again. When Harry turned around he found himself staring into the coolly surprised faces of six Slytherins. They all stared at each other for a moment while Bill was wondering whether or not this had been such a good idea when Drey spoke. "Babe, what's going on?"

"It was getting a bit crowded down there so I thought I'd come and see you, and Harry wasn't having such a good time down there so I brought him along." While he'd been speaking he'd sat down next to his girlfriend, pulled her into his arms and given her a light kiss on the temple. When he'd finished speaking everyone in the compartment stared at Harry, assessing him, then they all looked at each other, the twins nodded and the tension that had built up eased. Drey stood up and pulled Harry down onto the seat next to Draco who moved to make room for him. "So, Potter, the Golden Boy decided to lower himself to the Slytherin level and come sit with us." Malfoy was smirking at the raven-haired boy opposite him and talking in his usual sneer, Harry was so incensed at the thought that he'd been dragged down here, being told that they weren't that bad and they were just what he needed, that he completely missed the conspiratorial looks being sent between Draco and the rest of his court. "Look, Malfoy I don't need your shit right now, all right, and..." He was cut off in mid-flow by Malfoy's offer of a chocolate frog. Surprised he was told by Drey that, "It's no fun to have someone in here who doesn't rise to the bait, I mean, most people are just scared of us and do what we tell them, we had to make sure you weren't one of them." The smile on her face was infectious, the kind of smile he never expected to see on the face of a Malfoy, looking around he saw the rest of the court were smiling as well, and he couldn't help but join in and let a smile fall on to his face, accepting his enemy's (ex-enemy?) offer of a chocolate frog.

Throughout the trip there were periods of amicable silence and conversations about everything from Quidditch teams to the death of Sirius and the problems the Slytherins had at home. It was very strange to think of these people who had hated each other for years, except for Drey who had never met Harry before. But they had never really hated each other, Draco and the others had had to keep up the front for their house and their families, and Harry had been told by Ron what they were like and just carried on the idea of hating the Malfoys. But they all knew that they would never tell what had been told in this compartment outside of it, unless they were talking to each other, in fact they had used magic to ensure it. That being the only way Harry would talk about Sirius, they laughed and some cried a few time, Harry and Drey mainly. But it had to have been the best train ride Harry had ever had. When they arrived Harry was loath to depart from his new friends, but he and Bill had to go find Ron, Hermione and the rest of their crowd while the court went to take Drey to Dumbledore to prepare for the sorting.

At the feast, Harry's headache had grown incredibly from the amount of questions he had been asked and the volume they were asked at. After the first year sorting Bill and Charlie were introduced as new teachers and applauded accordingly. Then the moment came for Dracaena's sorting.

"Malfoy, Dracaena", when the name was called the hall went quiet, the rumours about the twins had been spreading through the school like wildfire after their appearance in the platform. When she walked up to the hat her walk was brimming with confidence. A few seconds after the hat had been placed on her head it screamed out "SLYTHERIN" and the riotous applause from that table drowned out anything else that had been heard that night.

When she sat down with her brother and the court at the head of the table, you could see that they ruled the house. As the food appeared everyone was talking about her appearance and what it could mean to have the twins back together. The purebloods were telling everyone who didn't know about them all the stories.

Before they ate the twins looked over at Harry and smiled, Drey looked down to her food almost immediately, but Draco locked eyes with him a little longer, making him blush. He knew Draco was gay, he had told him on the train earlier, but what he hadn't said was that he was fairly sure he was too, and he had a very bad feeling that he was going to end up falling head over heels for the Slytherin King.

Please review. PLEASE!!!!!!


	4. Night Time Matchmaking

Unfortunately I own nothing but Dracaena. My thanks to **SLNS** for reviewing, Draco and Drey are going to have equally large parts in the story, and I'm going to have fun with Drey's matchmaking schemes. And thanks to **QueenNarca** for reviewing every chapter.

Later that night in the Slytherin common room Drey and Draco were spending some quality time together, the first time they'd been on their own again since they got back with the court. As they had been separated for so long they enjoyed every minute of time they spent in each other's company. "So, Draco, anyone on the romantic horizon for you." Drey was smiling as she spoke, then popped another chocolate in her mouth. Laughing at her brother as he blushed and then furiously tried to hide it. He only let all of his walls down in front of her. Even in front of the court he left up a few boundaries, as did she. "I don't know what you mean."

"Oh I think you do, I saw how you were looking at Harry at the feast. You were so checking him out."

"I was not." He stressed, throwing a pillow at his sisters head, "I was just, saying hello. Nothing more than that. Besides, he's straight." He tried his best to keep a petulant note out of his voice when he said that. Privately he thought that if Potter had been gay, it would have been a great match. "Oh puh-lease. He is not straight, how could you not see that, aren't you supposed to have a gaydar or something. He so wanted you at the feast tonight, I could feel it, and I wasn't even looking." She giggled at her brothers sputtering; he was so cute when he couldn't think of anything to say. "Anyway what good would it do even if you are right? He might have relaxed with us on the train, but I'm still a Malfoy, and he's still the Boy-Who-Lived. He'd never get involved with a Slytherin." Studying her brother's face Drey came to a shocking revelation. "You're in love with him aren't you?" He started coughing when he heard that, nearly choking on his chocolate. "What, of course I'm not bloody in love with Potter, are you mad." His face was expressive, showing anger and disbelief at the assumption. But Drey was his twin, they may have been separated for years but she still knew how to read him. His eyes were showing pain, he was in love with Harry, he probably didn't know it was love. He was a Malfoy, except for family members, and sometimes not even then, they didn't love. As far as she knew they were the first generation to break that tradition in a long time.

"Don't worry Draco." She told him softly, crawling into his lap like she did when she was little and one of them wanted comforting. "You'll end up together. I know it."

"Drey!" He said, his voice filled with warning. "Don't try match making."

"I'm not going to match make, matchmaking means when neither of the two know that they like each other. You know you like Harry, and Harry is starting to realise that he likes you. I'm just going to give him a little encouragement. You won't need it." She smiled up at him, then feeling that the mood was getting too sombre she smiled and jumped onto the arm of the sofa with the air of a five-year-old. "Now that project should be fairly simple, but who are we going to set the rest of the court up with." Draco looked apprehensive at first, but then he started to smile, a smile with a tinge of maliciousness. "That's right, they're all single aren't they, and if you're dating a Weasley, and we're going to try and set me up with Potter, who are they going to be with?"

"I think that it should be Vince and Greg together, they're just so perfect for each other."

"Crabbe and Goyle! Well, I didn't see that coming." He looked a bit shell-shocked.

"Draco, when are you going to remember that I'm an empathy, I opened my senses on these two when we saw each other again. They both want each other but they're not going to admit it because neither of them think that the other feels the same way." She could see him mulling it over in his head and coming to the same realisation as her, they were so similar and they had the same sort of closeness that the twins did, not as strong, but it was there all the same.

"I know who to put Pansy with, but what about Blaise?" Drey asked, biting her bottom lip while pondering the question. "Who are you going to torture Pansy with?" He asked sarcastically, a gentle smirk gracing his face. Sticking her tongue out at him childishly she replied, "Charlie Weasley. It shouldn't be too difficult, Bill can help, and the lust was rolling off them in waves at the Leaky Cauldron. I didn't even need to open my empathy."

She continued after she told him the name, not letting him have a chance to voice his objections. "But that doesn't help us with Blaise." After deciding to just accept her theories about pansy and Charlie Weasley, she was probably right and it was easier than arguing with her. "I think I know about Blaise, since about third year he's been staring at Seamus Finnegan every chance he gets. You must have seen him tonight. Finnegan's the blond bloke that was sitting with Harry, Granger and the Weasel." Searching through her memories of the feast Drey could remember Blaise staring at a blond on the Gryffindor table, and if she was right he had been staring back. This could be even easier than she thought. A smile told her brother that she remembered and agreed with his plans, then suddenly she flung her had up in front of her mouth to cover a sudden yawn. Laughing her brother picked her up then stood and gently set her on her feet. Before they headed up the different stairs to the dorms he said one last thing. "Why are you doing this matchmaking thing, isn't it just better to let nature take its course?"

"No it bloody well is not better 'to let nature take its course'. I may have been away for a few years, but I still know you lot better than anyone else. None of you will move on it unless you're pushed, or gently nudged, whichever term you prefer. Besides" she said the last part with a cheeky grin, "I need something to do while I'm here, and it's fun to watch you all squirm." Laughing she ran up the stair and slammed the door, squealing whenever she was hit with one of the pillows Draco was pelting in her direction.

Draco laughed to himself as he went into his own dorm, and as he was getting ready changed for bed he silently conceded that she might have a point. Vince and Greg would be perfect for each other, he should have seen it himself really but he had never looked, Blaise and Finnigan was obvious to anyone who looked close enough, and he wouldn't interfere with Pansy and the Weasley, it might work and it might not. And as for him and Harry, he just hoped to God that whatever plan Drey came up with for them worked, he had a feeling that Harry was going to be spending a lot of time with them this year, and he didn't think he could handle that without grabbing him and kissing him senseless. Just before Draco went to sleep he found himself wishing that all of her matchmaking worked, it would be great to see all of his court happy, and he would be ecstatic if her plans for him and Harry came to fruition. But also because Drey loved making the people she loved happy, and he loved to see his sister happy. One thing he knew was that this was going to be a very different year.

Please review everybody who reads this.


	5. Potions

Thank you to everyone who reviewed my previous chapters

The next morning if anyone noticed Millicent tripping over the various pillows scattered over the stairs leading up to the girls rooms, no one mentioned that the twins had been the last ones down there last night. The court was slightly worried when they saw the looks the twins were sending in their direction, but they tried their best to pass it off as nothing. But when the Draco threw his arm around his sister's shoulder, an obvious sign to stay away, and they started whispering, sending conspiratorial looks back to the court every so often, they really started to worry.

Gryffindor Tower 

It was a very quiet walk down to breakfast for Harry. Ron wasn't talking to him after he had spent the train ride in with Slytherins; Hermione was being loyal to her boyfriend, and he hadn't had a chance to talk to any of the other boys at all. Ron had monopolized them at the feast the night before, and when they got to the common room. Eventually Harry had just grown tired of it and gone to bed earlier than anyone else. But it looked as though the same thing was going to happen today as well.

_Breakfast._

At breakfast Drey noticed that Harry seemed to be ostracized from the rest of his house. Pointing it out to her brother they observed the table and realised that the Weasel seemed to be the focus of the table, not allowing anyone near his supposed best friend. As soon as they started speaking to him he drew them into another conversation.

Speaking as Slytherins they were disgusted by that. The Gryffindors were supposed to be loyal and they were deserting him! Slytherins might be thought of as evil, but they looked after their own, and if they had their way, Harry would become and honorary Slytherin. As soon as they came up with a plan they shared it with their court ad it was spread down the Slytherin table, seeing everyone nod in agreement they smiled.

The first lesson was double potions. In Harry's opinion that was another curse, same as the one on the Defence Against the Dark Arts job. Gryffindors were cursed to have double potions with the Slytherins every year. Although reflecting back on the train ride yesterday it might not be that bad.

He arrived a bit later than everyone else, Ron had tripped him over and everything had gone flying out of his bag. The only one who had stopped to help him had been Neville, and he had a sneaking feeling that he was just putting off potions for as long as possible. Getting all of his books back together hadn't been difficult but his wand had gone rolling somewhere and it had taken them about five minutes to find it.

By the time they arrived every seat on the Gryffindor side of the room had been taken except for the back row where Ron, Hermione and Dean had spread out all their stuff and taken over the last two places. Harry was about to go over there and throw all of Ron's stuff on the floor and jump on it repeatedly to show that he'd had enough of the way his best friend was acting when Draco and Drey came up to him and Neville. "Potter, Longbottom."

"Harry, come and sit with us will you, I hate being his partner in potions, he always tries to show off."

"So do you."

"Shh, and can you come and be my partner, uh..."

"N..Neville L..Longbottom. But you don't want to be my partner Miss Malfoy, I'm really bad at potions."

"Call me Drey, and you're probably not bad at potions. But Snape yelled at you once and just kept going and you could never do them after that. Right?"

He nodded, but before he could speak again another Slytherin spoke up, expecting insults Harry and Neville stiffened slightly, (to the twins amusement) and were surprised when Theodore Nott just agreed with Drey, telling her that that was exactly what had happened, and saying that Snape was going to be there in a few minutes and they should sit down.

The rest of the class had been silent during the whole exchange and they stared in astonishment as Drey and Draco sat down on the bench and sat Neville and Harry on either side of them.

About two seconds later Snape stalked through the door to the front of the classroom, named a potion, put the instructions on the board and told them to get on with it. If he was surprised at the two Gryffindors sitting in Slytherin territory he didn't show it.

Harry and Neville went to get the potion ingredients while the twins set up the equipment they needed. When they returned with the ingredients and began making the potion the two Gryffindors were amazed at how easy they made it seem, the whole court in fact. This was supposed to be a complicated potion for sixth years, but it seemed as though they could have done it in their sleep. They involved Harry and Neville, the whole court did in fact, they were all laughing and joking, and by the end of the lesson even Neville had lost his stutter and was joking up a storm with Blaise. That had to have been the first potions lesson where Neville hadn't blown something up, unlike Ron who had destroyed his potion. At the end of the lesson when they took their vials to Professor Snape and Ron started to say something to Harry and Neville he was interrupted by the threatening figures of the Slytherin court.

For that whole day Neville and Harry were treated with the same courtesy from the Slytherins, from the first years to the seventh years. Draco and Drey had taken Harry into their protection at breakfast, that meant that he was to be treated as any other Slytherin, and after Potions the same went for Neville, when they saw how he was a forgotten casualty of Ron's campaign against Harry.

But the real test would be charms the next day, when Bill had to try and teach his girlfriend and her family, and Ron would be expecting him to be biased towards Gryffindors. Merlin knows that would end.


	6. Charms

I only own Dracaena.

After lunch on the second day of the term Bill was bustling around his classroom, although if you asked him, he wasn't bustling he was reflexively pacing. Although panicking may be a better term, in the last twenty-four hours he and Charlie had had to hide from Ron over ten times. In-between every lesson he had found one of them and started complaining about the twins and how they were treating him, and how it was completely ridiculous how they were being with Harry and Neville. And the twins were another problem, he had seen the glint in Drey's eyes this morning, and she had been plotting with Draco, they were going to do something during his lesson, he knew it.

Just when he was turning to do another length of the room the door opened and Professor Flitwick came in. "Ah, Bill, my boy, wearing a hole in the floor are you. Don't you worry, I was just the same way before my first lessons, somehow the older they are the worse it seems to be." He cast Wingardium Leviosa on himself when he finished speaking, levitating himself to the top of a pile of books. Bill just sent him a sickly grin before heading over to his chair just as the students came in.

Once again the Slytherins and Gryffindors separated, moving to different sides of the classroom, except for Harry and Neville. They seated themselves in the centre of the court; besides her matchmaking schemes Drey had made it her personal mission to bring Neville out of his shell, and it seemed to be working. The two rival houses were paired together for every lesson now, much to the annoyance of the Gryffindors. And Neville was getting on really well with Vince and Greg; they spent most of the History of Magic lesson talking about Herbology.

"Attention, attention class. Thank you everyone, now, welcome back to Hogwarts. For the first part of the lesson we will be studying animation charms, and then you will be working with Mr Weasley about some of the more dangerous charms and curses and how to break them. Now, take out your wands and lets begin."

Wandering around the classroom Bill and the Professor were helping the students with their spells. "Very good Miss Granger, right first time."

"More swish than flick in the wand movement please Mr Finnigan."

"It's 'Animer' not 'Arnimer', Ron."

"Wonderful Mr and Miss Malfoy. Absolutely perfect. Oh, well done Mr Longbottom, Mr Potter."

They were set an essay on the uses of animation charms and what they could affect and then handed over to Bill. After talking for twenty minutes on the various types and strengths of locking charms he began to relax. Then he saw trails of light moving by the Slytherins, the twins were leaning together and whispering, their and their hands were tracing patterns that were followed by blue light. Trying to resume his lecture he shook his head a little when there he felt a buzzing sensation in his mind, then _"Hi babe, how you doing." _He nearly had a heart attack, Drey's voice was whispering in his head, whipping his head to look at her he saw a small smirk, but no her movement of her lips. _"What's going on?"_ He thought as loud as he could, hoping that this spell worked both ways. _"I'm saying hello to my boyfriend, what does it sound like. And you don't need to shout darling, I'm right here." _He could definitely hear a smirk in that voice.

"Drey you cannot start talking to me mind-to-mind when I'm trying to teach!" 

"_Don't worry sweetie, I'm just going to sit here and learn, you won't even know I'm here."_

Focusing on the class in front of him Bill realised that he hadn't said anything for a few minutes and everyone was staring at him. Shaking his head again and he turned his attention to teaching again. And that is how the rest of the lesson wait, it was all theory work and Drey kept making little comments about the subject or the other students, or when she was really bored and had finished her work she sent him flashes of their time together in Egypt.

When the bell sounded for the end of the lesson he asked her to stay behind, fully intending to yell at her for what she had done. But when she came to stand in front of him just drank in the sight of her. Her hair was all down loose and her robes were open over her uniform, she was biting her lip, doing her best to look innocent, and succeeding, biting her lower lip, looking absolutely adorable and angelic. He didn't care how much he sounded like one of his mothers romance novels, she was gorgeous and he loved her, but that wasn't going to stop him yelling. "How could you do that, I was trying to teach. I nearly made a right fool of myself out there. I'm going to have to face an inquisition from everyone in Gryffindor about why I let them down in front of the Slytherins. Ron's idea not mine so don't you start rolling your eyes at me." He continued on in that fashion for several minutes before he was cut off by a pair of soft lips closing over his own. When Drey drew back she smiled up at him, covering his mouth gently with her hand. "Shh, I'm sorry. But you didn't think that I would let this first lesson go by without something to remember the occasion did you. Now I promise I won't do that again, I won't do anything in any of your other lessons, promise. If you'll excuse me I have to get back to Herbology." Kissing his cheek lightly she pulled away from him and walked out of the door, when he stood in the doorway he could see her walking off with the court and the two Gryffindors, turning over her shoulder and blowing him a kiss. As soon as Bill turned and closed the classroom door they all broke into peals of laughter, looking very un-slytherin.

Later that day after an uneventful afternoon, the court were cloistered in their common room. After they had exhausted all topics of conversation, the most popular being Drey's performance in Charms, "No guys, I'm serious, I'm not going to do anything more in Bill's classes, that was just the first one so it had to be commemorated." And exhausted themselves, Drey excused herself and went to talk to Snape. Knocking on his door she called out and he came to the door. He scowled down at her, looking every bit the evil, forbidding potions master. "Hello uncle Severus."

"Dracaena."

"Can I come in?" The only reply he gave was swinging the door open wider. Stepping trough she folded herself onto a black armchair and looked up at him with an ingratiating smile. "I don't suppose you've got anything to drink around here do you, we were eating sherbets in the common room and..."

"What are you doing here Drey?" He sounded amused, more like her godfather than the man most of Hogwarts knew. "Well, in potions you said that we would be doing long term projects this year and that you would be assigning the partners." Seeing him nod she carried on. "I was wondering if I could make some suggestions for the partnerships. I've got plans for the court and it would be a lot easier if I could get them working closely with certain people." Although he would never admit it to anyone, Severus would do anything for a Slytherin, especially one of the twins or the court. Smirking he said, "Who do you want with who?" Leaning their heads together the two began to plan.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed. **Morena Evensong**: Thanks for the comments about Drey, I'm not sure about Ginny yet, I'm probably going to pair her with Neville, so she'll be on the twins' side. Snape and the King and Queen are going to have a role later when they reveal all their powers. **bthatcher2002**: as the story gets further on the chapters will probably get longer. **Broken Sun**: the Gryffindors will be like this for a while, but eventually they'll have to choose a side, and they might not be the typical ones.


	7. Coronation Potion

I still only own Drey   
A few days later 

"And I will be assigning the partners for this project. It will continue until Christmas, due in the first lesson back after Christmas. You will sit with your assigned partner every lesson, there will be no exception, is that clear." Severus glared threateningly at the class. The Gryffindors were all looking at each other, each saying they hoped they'd be their friends partner. A useless and annoying habit in his opinion. The Slytherins were a more refined, they were all sitting there, supercilious smirks firmly planted on their faces, none more so than Dracaena, her brother stared at her, knowing she had done something, and dreading what it was going to be.

"Everyone stand, gather you things and move to the back of the room, when I call out your name you will move to a desk with you partner. There will be no talking." He thundered the last part when Lavender Brown started gossiping about something a Ravenclaw had told her. With Lavender effectively chastened and Gryffindor deprived of 10 points, he began to read out the partners.

"Zabini, Finnigan." They both stared at each other in shock, and a bit of pleasure that was quickly masked, Draco however wasn't looking at them, he was looking at the smug smile on his sister's face. "Crabbe, Goyle." Okay, now e knew she had been talking to Snape. "Malfoy Draco, Potter. Malfoy Dracaena, Granger, Parkinson, Thomas." He read through, the Slytherins could all see just how much he was enjoying torturing the Gryffindors, but they could see something else. The look he always got when he was doing something for them, and no one except for Dracaena and Draco knew.

"Draco, Draco!" Draco was jerked out of his thoughts on the best way to torture his sister when a pair of hands clapped just in front of his news. Leaning backwards, but managing to make it look casual with the Malfoy grace he glared at the emerald eyed boy before him. "What do you want Potter?"

"Everyone's gone, the bell went about five minutes ago. It was quite funny though; you even managed to ignore Ron shouting. I think that annoyed him more than you answering him would have." He finished thoughtfully, his lips were twisted into a smirk, and at that sight Draco groaned while standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder. "I've been rubbing off on you." He groaned under his breath, ignoring Harry's questions, "What's the project on Harry, I wasn't listening." Shaking his head in mock exasperation Harry explained that they had to research the coronation potion, he was about to explain what the spell was when Draco interrupted him, "I know what the spell is Potter. Lets get to charms, we can sort out when we're going to work on it there." With that he walked off, it seemed to Harry as though he was acting like he had done before the train ride. If you had told him last year that he would be worried about Draco Malfoy, he and Neville Longbottom would be sitting with the Slytherins at every opportunity, and that he wouldn't be speaking to Ron, unless they were yelling at each other he would have thought you were crazy. Shaking his head at his crazy world he shouldered his bag and followed his friend to charms, resolving to talk to Drey, see why the mention of that spell caused a reaction like that.

In charms the Slytherins behaved themselves as instructed by Drey, as promised she did nothing else in his lessons except learn. Although why she bothered she didn't know, she knew all this stuff anyway. She was trying to hide a yawn when a crumpled piece of parchment fell awkwardly in her desk. Picking it up she surreptitiously scanned the benches around her, when she saw Harry staring at her with anticipation. Opening it she read hastily scrawled words. _Drey, do you know anything about the coronation potion. _Her eyes went wide and she read faster._ It's the potion for our project and when I mentioned it Draco went back to Malfoy, do you have and idea why. Harry. _

The entire class turned their attention towards her when the note exploded into flames. Ignoring everyone's stares she grabbed her things latched onto Draco and pulled him out of the room after her. In the echoing silence Bill and Harry moved to follow them but the court stopped them. Placing a restraining hand on Harry's chest Blaise spoke to both of them. "Let them go, they need to be themselves." If anyone noticed the words he used they didn't draw attention to it, instead they saw the slightly glowing strands of jewel coloured hair.

The twins stormed across the grass outside of the school heading to the forest. Hagrid was teaching some first years and when he called out to stop they just reached behind them and flicked their wrists, not even looking, just continuing to the forest. Their motions created a shimmering pool of light that trapped Hagrid, the first years, and the Sleipnir. They all shouted and screamed in panic, but the twins just walked into the forest, never turning back.

Miniscule shafts of sunlight filtered into the heart of the forest through the dense foliage above. Cool air was blowing blond and jewel coloured hair around ivory faces set in stone expressions. Dracaena and Draconis were standing before a white marble temple with the personal crest of Salazar Slytherin engraved onto the front of the building. "How could he be so stupid?!" Draco thundered, ignoring the lightning that struck the boulder beside him. His sister was leaning against a tree; eyes slightly out of focus, thinking. "He knows what that spell is. Why the fuck would he assign it to me and Potter?" Another bolt of lightning struck and shook Drey from her reverie. "Exactly, he knows what it is. Uncle Severus was always telling us how we'd inherit the Malfoy throne. Now that Lucius is in Azkaban, maybe he's trying to get us to take it." Drey spoke slowly, thoughtfully. Silence reigned after her announcement as they both considered its possibilities. "Could we do that?" Draco asked.

"I don't see why not, we have more power than he does, the power of the Ancients to be exact. The coronation shouldn't be a problem. The thing is there has only ever been a Lord and his wife, never brother _and _sister ruling equally." She bit her lip as she spoke, wondering if he would take this chance to separate from her. Her face lifted when his fingers appeared under her chin and lifted up her face. "When have we ever been known for following the rules?" Seeing the glint in his eyes her lips slowly spread into a smirk, followed by an identical expression on her brother's face. Having agreed on that they turned their faces to the temple beside them. They both knew what was in there, why they had been forcefully drawn here when they first found out about the coronation potion. Draco held his arm out to his sister and once she had slipped her arm through they headed to the doorway. They looked every bit the Slytherin King and Queen, Malfoy Lord and Lady, and heir to more strands of magic than anyone before them. The snake engraving began to glow, silver light glowed along the outline and the eyes shone with pearl. Together they walked forwards into the dark passage, finally accepting their full destiny.

"No one can get into the forest Harry." Bill sighed, sinking into a chair, exhausted. He was in the library with Harry, Neville and Ginny. They had all swiftly grown tired of the jubilation in Gryffindor Tower, Ginny had joined the other two, disgusted with her brother's glee at the thought of the two Slytherins in the forest, hoping for their deaths, joking abut how they would die. "What do you mean no one can get in? How can the forest be blocked off? What if they're hurt? Dieing." His eyes were shining with tears at the thought, no matter how strange it seemed, how unusual it was for a Gryffindor, Harry Potter no less, to care about a Slytherin, he was going to continue caring about Draco, and Drey. But he had a feeling that if Draco didn't come back he wouldn't be able to last without seeing him everyday. He was infecting Neville and Bill with his panic, the thought of not having Drey was enough to drive Bill to distraction, and Neville worshipped Drey, she had encouraged him, brought him out of his shell. Draco was just as dear to him, as was the rest of the court, although last year they had terrorized him in potions class.

Just as panic was hitting them full blast they were interrupted by Ginny's quiet laughter. They all glared at her, even Neville managed a terrifying look, she quieted, but still couldn't help but be amazed at their ignorance of the subject. "Do you honestly believe that anything could harm those two?" She started to laugh again when she saw they didn't have any idea what she was talking about. "You're too close to them." She realised, "You can't see what everyone else does. The twins, the court, they're surrounded by power. It rolls off the twins whenever one of them is angry, even if they're at opposite ends of a building their power is connected by a rope, not a string like Fred and George, but a strong rope. Nothing could hurt those two, not apart, and definitely not together. If anything the forest should be afraid." She sighed and looked at them, their faces clearing with the light of understanding. "No one knows what their full power is, I doubt even the court does, not fully. But there is something different about them, more than just a lot of power, how else would thy have the power for the court. And I'll bet that the coronation potion you were talking about has something to do with it Harry." They all looked at the girl a year younger than them and realised she was right, they were too close to see the power of the twins. But they knew it was there, and Harry and Bill had a feeling it was only going to grow stronger.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed my last chapter. **lufcboy, Beserker Nightwitch Silverone3, Beth5572**. I love all of you, please can people review this chapter. ï


	8. Additions

I only own Drey.

Two days later the Gryffindors and Slytherins were paired up at Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid and Charlie were teaching a lesson about dragons. Charlie had conjured up insubstantial copies of the dragons and was pointing out how each aspect of its design contributed to the animal's power. However they weren't getting much attention as nearly everyone's attention was focused onto the forest, or more specifically the colourful dome of energy covering the forest.

It had been there since a few hours after the twins had entered the forest. No sound had been heard from inside since, the court was frantic with worry, although they were hiding it well beneath the Slytherin façade, and the rest of their house was nearly as bad. Bill hadn't been able to teach his classes properly he was too worried, Harry and Neville had been hopeless in lessons, even Snape was acting a bit scattered, although making up for it my biting the head off of anyone who even breathed out of place. Ginny had taken to staying with her oldest brothers, Harry and Neville when she wasn't in lessons. She had no great love for the Slytherins but the maliciousness the other houses were displaying drove her mad, their insensitivity towards obviously worried people was amazing. The fights between Slytherins and Gryffindor had risen to an all time high because Gryffindors were continuously bating the house about the twins, although they had learnt not to do so around Harry and Neville unless they wanted a black eye. Even Neville had punched Dean when he said something about Drey, Ginny slapped Ron, and no one went near Harry anymore, he had beaten a seventh year to a bloody pulp when he had said something about Draco.

Seamus wasn't doing so great either, to the bewilderment of Ron and Dean, he seemed to be staring at Blaise a lot, and when they were in the library, supposedly working on their project, he had been reported t be supposedly telling Blaise that he needed to eat more. All of Slytherin was looking exhausted. Unknown to the rest of the school they spent each night in their common room trying different spells to break the field, to get in touch with their King and Queen, but to no avail.

"Will ya please pay attention." Hagrid roared, shocking everyone's focus back to him. Just as he and Charlie were about to start teaching again, music burst from the forest. The class fell silent, as did everyone in the school, as the sound washed over them. It was high, clear, pure music, like angels singing, each person could feel the music's light descending on them, cleansing them. As the music swelled the field around the forest slid down and into the ground and the twins stepped out.

They weren't wearing the uniforms they had entered in. Draco was dressed in loose white cotton trousers that hung just below his hip bone, an open silver shirt showed off a chiselled chest, his eyes were glowing a molten silver. Drey had a halter neck dress with the top half being a pearl colour, the ankle length skirt was white, and her eyes were glowing the same silver as her brothers. Resting on their foreheads was a perfectly round, flawless diamond, held around their heads by a delicate silver band that disappeared under their hair. The colours in their hair were glowing brightly, and as soon as they left the cover of the forest the courts colours started to glow, their faces moved to an expression of wonder and one by one the court descended onto their knees, heads bowed. Followed by every other Slytherin, then Harry and Neville, and slowly Seamus. Their faces were filled with awe, wonder, and love. But the Gryffindors were staring with disgust, and faces full of ridicule at the kneeling Slytherins. Except for Hermione, she was curious, she was sure she recognized the picture they formed, the clothes, the diamonds, but at the same time, they looked infinitely different to anything that she had ever seen before. Charlie and Hagrid were too busy trying to control the dragon copies, which seemed to have gained a life of their own.

Regally the twins walked forwards towards the class, disregarding the group of teachers and other students that had gathered around the entrance to the school. Walking through an aisle between the students, kneeling and standing, adoring and hating. Until they stood before their kneeling court, in unison they placed a hand on each strand of colour and whispered a few words. _Avec la nouvelle magie nous te lions, et accorder de nouveaux pouvoirs qui aideront dans notre tache. _To Vince and Greg it was telekinesis, Blaise was telepathy, Pansy was empathy. Then they continued. Harry was given fire and a citrine streak in his hair, which was then added to the twins collection of colours. Neville was water, and an aquamarine streak; Seamus was earth and a malachite strip of colour. Then, to the shock of all the Gryffindors, Bill shimmered into existence next to the row of court members, he was also bowing, and the ritual gave him control of air, and a streak the colour of lapis lazuli. Each new colour glowed strongly and the four new members of the court were surrounded by swirls of their chosen element, they looked up in wonder and the twins and the original court smiled at their new members, enjoying the sight. Then, just as Dumbledore stepped forward, probably to calm down and ask for an explanation, they looked at each other and the twins and the newly improved court disappeared. Leaving a lot of Slytherins with newly improved faith in their leaders, and Gryffindors who were angry, and very confused, except for Hermione who was dying to get to the library and see if her assumptions were correct.

"What the hell just happened?! Please. Feel free to tell me. Anyone. Anytime now." Seamus gave up, threw his ands in the air and then slumped down onto the mosaic floor. In front of him the two Malfoys and their original court were clustered around Harry, Bill and Neville. Drey and Pansy were lifting the strands of newly coloured hair and laughing at Bill's face as he complained about having blue in his hair. Just as he looked up his green eyes locked with Blaise's ice blue ones. They held each other's gaze for a few moments, until Drey appeared and forcibly pushed Blaise in his direction, telling him to explain everything to Seamus. And by everything she meant the court and that they needed to get together soon because the feelings in their hearts were driving her nuts, they were so strong she couldn't block them out. Then she turned back to the gathering that was settling onto a marble wall next to an onyx unicorn sculpture.

"It's not anything scary you know." Blaise started hesitantly, his new telepathy picking up on thoughts screaming from the object of his affection, panicked thoughts about being indebted to Malfoys.

"What?"

"Being a member of the court. The twins aren't like Lucius; they'll never hurt on of their own. And deep down you must be pleased about it; otherwise the spell wouldn't have taken." He looked up into the blond boys eyes and saw an emotion glimmering beneath their surface that just escaped his reach.

"I know that, and except for what the rest of Gryffindor will say, I don't mind that much. I get to be closer to you anyway." The last part was whispered under his breath, supposedly unheard by Blaise, but he heard and thoughts whirled. "I just don't understand what they want. Why they want me." He looked up at Blaise, expecting an answer, but instead he got a pair of soft lips covering his own, after the initial shock he opened his mouth, and slowly their tongues started exploring each others mouths. They remained like that for several minutes, and while they were distracted, they didn't notice the slight liquefying feeling in a small part of their minds. And the feel of their thoughts extending towards each other and intertwining. Completely unnoticed by them an unbreakable bond had formed between them, a bond that would take them time to understand, but would give them more pleasure than anything else.

"Now, that is a show." The pulled apart when they heard laughter and clapping from the rest. Blushing they turned to face them. "Oh don't stop boys. Please." Laughing Pansy and Drey collapsed against each other in tears. Neville looked embarrassed, Bill looked a bit confused, mainly by the fact that his girlfriend was practically rolling on the floor with laughter. Greg and Vince, Harry and Draco were looking pleased for their friends, but slightly distracted by thoughts running through their heads, wishes of engaging in activities like that with the boy standing next to them.

Seeing the mortified faces of the two boys Pansy and Drey stopped laughing and ran forwards, throwing their arms around them and soundly kissing each one on the cheek, and then proceeding to sit in their laps. "Don't be embarrassed. It's about time the two of you got together. You've been undressing each other mentally for years." Mortification turned to embarrassed laughter, and soon all tension was eased.

The silence following was comfortable, all the occupants of the grand room being comfortable in each other's presence. No matter how bizarre it seemed. "I still don't understand this though." Bill stated. "How could you bring us into the court and give us extra power. No one should be able to give power over the elements or mind." Everyone suddenly realised that what had happened was actually impossible, as one they moved their heads to stare at the twins who looked abashed at the looks being directed their way. "I suppose you want an explanation then." Draco looked glum, he and his twin were wondering just how they could explain what had happened in normal words. It was so much more that that.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed. **Silverone3: **thanks, I needed to move it forward but I didn't want it to be boring though. **Morena Evensong: **Yeah, Snape'll be really nice to the Slytherins in this story, although he might not be so pleased about the new members of the court. **Beth5572: **thanks for the review. **Beserker Nightwitch:** the temple will all be explained in the next chapter, and I'm going to have the new court breaking a lot of rules. They've got to really; they're hardly in a normal situation.

Please review again people, and any new people who want to review. ï ï


	9. Questions

All I own is Drey.

"To start with we're in a temple in the forest. We've always known this was here. Don't know how, we just did, even before I ever came here. And when I did, there was this really strong feeling, pulling me towards the forest. That's why I was so freaked about coming here that time in forest year. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to stay away from here. But I knew I could only come here when Drey was here too, otherwise it would be...spoiled, for lack of a better word." They were all seated around a flickering fire, Drey and Draco at the head as everyone else ranged around them, Seamus pulled tight against Blaise's chest. It was a very unusual scene in the fact that the fire was hovering about 20cm off the ground and was flickering from green to blue to yellow to pink, and then back again. It's light bathed the faces of the court as they faced their rulers.

"In the first couple of days when I got back we decided that as we were both here we were going to come here, find out why this place was calling us. But, when it came to it we couldn't. Its call was too pure for us to disturb, unless we absolutely needed to. And a few days ago we needed to." Drey was leaning into her brother's shoulder, eyes jumping round the hall they were in, drinking in the sight of sculptures and paintings with wonder and awe painted clearly all over her face.

"The coronation potion, the one we had to do for our project." Harry stated with conviction. Drawing exclamations from the original court. "The coronation potion!"

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"What are you going to do?"

"You know the rules about that potion."

Neville and Bill knew a little bit about what they were talking about, Harry and Seamus were completely in the dark though. With a look Draco quelled the interruptions and turned to face the confused Gryffindors. "In the old days, when all magic was accepted, the pureblood families were the rulers, they controlled vast areas of land, vast numbers of people. Like all things, there were some good, some bad. But most were good, as hard as you may find it to believe, especially our family. Our people loved us, and there was none of this black magic, white magic crap. It was the caster who had to be held responsible for the way the spell was used, the spell itself was pure. Every spell has a good side, even the Unforgiveables.

Back then, when the head of the family died and their oldest child inherited the family responsibilities, the coronation potion was used to secure the transfer of power." Then Drey took over. By using the coronation potion you receive the knowledge of every family head since the first time it was used. Hardly any families use it anymore, there's no point if no one here trusts us enough to let us rule. But our family still continued with the tradition, the knowledge was too great to lose, no matter about the danger. It's very dangerous unless the recipient has the power to control the influx of knowledge. Only the families ever knew about it." Their audience was looking dazed, except for Blaise and Pansy; their stomachs were sinking with a horrible feeling. With a nervous look towards each other the twins blurted out at the same time. "We're going to use it."

"WHAT!!"

"What the hell do you mean you're 'going to use it'?! You cannot use this spell. One, Lucius isn't dead."

"Two, how do you plan on controlling the power. You have to go through training to reach that level of control over you're mind. And you have to be older than you are!"

"And three. IT'S BLOODY SUICIDAL!!!" Pansy and Blaise roared the last point in unison. Crabbe and Goyle were standing behind them, nodding in silent but emphatic agreement. Bill, Harry and Neville were turning from one person to another, as though they were watching a tennis match.

"Do you really think that we don't know how dangerous it is?" Drey stared at her friends quietly, her new power radiating from her body. Draco was exactly the same. "But we have to do this. Lucius is in Azkaban, he won't be able to stop the spell."

"And as for the power part, we've always been powerful, we've always been able to do nearly anything we wanted, and after the last couple of days. We're so much more. You should be able to tell that by the fact that we gave you new powers, and we got new members for the court."

"The only real problem will be splitting the knowledge and power between the two of us. Which is where we need you. Blaise, Pansy, we need you to write us a new spell that will split the flow into both of us."

There was silent pleading when Draco stopped speaking, Drey had locked eyes onto Pansy, Draco had focused onto Blaise, the air was charged with tension as they fought. Everyone knew that the twins were going to get their way, but their advisors at least had to keep up appearances.

With a depressed sigh and a limp nod the two advisors sealed their leaders fate. They would go through with this now, and god knows how it would end. As soon as their heads fell forward, signalling agreement, everyone sprang into action. "There are loads of spell books in the library here. It's more like the magic we could always do than the stuff at school, so that might be better for splitting the knowledge between us." With a click of her fingers Drey pulled a pale blue round ball of light. It flew off her hand and headed down a mosaic corridor, followed by Blaise and Pansy who were already arguing about linguistics and the types of magic that could be put into the spell. Vince and Drey headed off down another corridor, talking about the history of this place, finding out what it was exactly. Greg and Draco went down a third corridor, wanting to find out the same thing, but planning on searching the cellars instead of the rooms.

As the arguing voices got softer the three Gryffindors were left sitting in silence in the hall. After a few minutes and the voices had just about disappeared they sprang up and Bill and Neville headed after Drey, Seamus sprinted after Blaise, and Harry disappeared after Draco. The fire continued to flicker, casting magical shadows over the walls.

"No, I'm telling you, if you introduce gypsy magic with the Egyptian curses all that will happen is them getting cursed forever in the afterlife."

"No, they'll offset each other causing a balance between life and death. Which should create the balance we need between Drey ad Draco."

Pansy and Blaise were shouting across the table, waving their arms around and quoting passages from dusty books, pointing emphatically when they found something that argued for their case. Around them the others were sitting in a circle, eating the chocoballs, every flavour beans, levitating sherbet balls, and all the other snacks the twins had conjured out of thin air, and drinking from the bottles of butterbeer. This was better than any play or TV show any of them had ever seen. When the two stopped for air they blushed when they heard the clapping, cheers and 'encores' being shouted at them by their audience. "Ooops." They murmured guiltily. Embarrassed they sat down and started eating their share of the goodies. It didn't go unnoticed by the twins that they were sitting on opposite sides of the circle, obviously still mad over the argument.

"What are we going to do?" Neville asked, subdued. His question brought the others back to reality, no matter how much they wanted they could not stay in the temple forever. They had to go back to Hogwarts, face the inevitable questions. Drey sighed from her position curled up on Bill's lap. "We go back. Harry and Draco do their project on the coronation potion. But we make sure that hardly anyone knows what it really is." Her voice was muffled as she was speaking into Bill's chest.

"What about us. I mean, the rest of Gryffindor is going to be furious, never mind McGonagall. It's going to be hell in the tower, you saw what they were like when you came out of the forest." Seamus sank into Blaise's chest, his glum face was mirrored by the other Gryffindors as they realised he was right. They had all felt the anger from Ron and the other members of their house, it would only get worse. Harry would be condemned before everyone, the Boy Who Lived, the saviour of the wizarding world, being this closely entwined with Slytherins, it could only cause problems. And Bill, everyone knew who the court were, and how, in effect they served the twins. He was a teacher, and no one knew about his relationship with Drey, god knows what would happen, to him or Charlie, who would be made guilty by association seeing as how he had never condemned the court, and always seemed to have a little extracurricular interest in Pansy.

"It won't matter. Years ago a prince of something came to Hogwarts, he brought his court with him. They gave him a special suite of rooms, I see no reason why we shouldn't use them." As Draco had been speaking a slow smirk had climbed onto his face, his eyes gleamed as he stared at his audience, seeing the cogs in their brains turning to catch up with his idea, and similar smirks spread across their faces, even Neville, who looked very Slytherin at that moment.

"If we move in there the house rules dissipate, we'd be out of the heads jurisdiction." Pansy was chattering in excitement, her face flushing pink.

"Where is it?" Harry asked, just as excited as the others, he and Neville had been cast out from Gryffindor since the beginning of term, it would be good to get away.

"Down by the dungeons." Drey answered, seeing the slightly distasteful looks on their faces she continued, affronted. "What's wrong with dungeons. They're perfectly nice places, besides, there's no need worry, they're not quite in the dungeons. There's a separate wing underground, they're in that, and the roof of the main room in clear so you can see outside. Happy." There was a sarcastic tilt to her head as she finished, wondering what the problem with Gryffindors and dungeons was.

"Happy. Just one question, can Ginny come to?" There was silence after Neville's question; the Slytherins grew hostile and stiff to the touch at the mention of it. Trying to ignore the danger signals Bill continued Neville's point, "Charlie too, if that'd be all right." At that Drey and Blaise moved away from Bill and Seamus, Drey heading over to her brother who stood and wrapped his arm around her. The rest of the original court stood and moved into positions behind them.

On the ground Harry looked nervously around, Neville was chewing on his bottom lip, wondering why he had had to open his mouth. Seamus was wondering if this meant he would be back to staring at Blaise across the room. Bill's eyes flickered between his girlfriend and her twin.

"Why?" Draco's voice was cold, and to Harry's surprise the air seemed to fog slightly. Hesitantly he replied, wondering what had happened to cause such a reaction in his friend. "Ginny's being frozen out of Gryffindor as well. She was sticking up for all of you when you disappeared; she slapped Ron when he started insulting you and hoping that you stayed in the forest. And Charlie's been defending you some of the time as well." His voice grew stronger as he spoke, he was defending his friends, they had a right to this protection as well.

There was silence for the next ten minutes as the twins appeared to consider their decision, with moral support from the court. In reality. _"We can't have them there as well."_

"_We don't have a choice, they're family know, if they trust them, so should we."_

"_How do we know if they can, there are still secrets we have to protect, even from those three, how are we going to cope with two more."_

"_We're Slytherins, do you honestly think we can't keep some secrets from a few Gryffindors?"_

"_So they're coming then."_

"_We don't have a choice. Who knows, maybe it won't be so bad."_

"_If they were really sticking up for us then, it might work."_

With remarkable unity the whole group nodded in acquiescence. "They can come." With that statement the issue was put to the side for the time being. With a wave of Drey's hand their clothes were changed from the uniform into black trousers, or a dress for Pansy, and a shirt of their court colour, or the top half of Pansy's dress.

With a smirk they arranged themselves into the court positions they used when they were out to make an impression. Then with a pop they disappeared and reappeared in the great hall, in the middle of dinner.

Pansy and Blaise's last thought before they left was, _what are they still hiding from us?_

Thanks to everyone who reviewed:

**Beserker Nightwitch: **yeah. Citrine's orangey/red, kind of a fire colour which is why I chose it.

**Silverone3: **the Gryffindors were anry because they (Ron especially) wanted to be superior to the Slytherins, wanted to believe that they were just kids with a silly little club called a court, and that the feeling of power coming from them was just an illusion. But when they came from the forest they felt the power and the majesty coming from them, and so they were angry. I think I'm going to try and bring one of the couples together every other chapter, that's the theory anyway.

**Beth5572: **thanks. I think I might try a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Stargate next, with Faith related to someone on the team. I love crossovers.

Can people please review, because I'm not sure if this chapter worked or not. ;)


	10. The Suite

I own nothing but Dracaena.

In the great hall everyone was sitting at their tables, and the only topic of conversation was what had happened in the sixth year Care of Magical Creatures lesson, Ginny had been taken to the teachers table by Charlie when she had yelled at Ron because he called Bill a traitor. When Charlie had intervened Ron had flipped, the flow of students heading to the hall had frozen and watched one of the family loving Weasleys chew out their big brother and baby sister. After a few minutes of insults Charlie's face had frozen into a look of annoyed disgust and he took Ginny's arm, a path cleared for them to the hall, they had walked to the teachers table, and ignoring several professors startled noises he seated his sister. Strangely enough Snape was the only professor not to comment on Ginny's appearance.

The two red heads were silent, if they talked it was only to each other, down at the Gryffindor Ron was sitting beside Hermione who sent plaintive glances to Ginny, wishing she were there. After the twins had disappeared with their court she had hurried to the library, desperate to see if her suspicions were correct. She was on the verge of going back to the common room or the library to get away from Ron's derogatory remarks about the twins, when silence spread from the teacher's dais and through the rest of the hall, heads turned like a wave to see the tendrils of smoke blurring in front of the door.

Emerald, malachite, sapphire, lapis lazuli, aquamarine, citrine, amethyst, silver and pearl. Ribbons of coloured smoke curled around, forming into a snake with a head ready to strike as the colours deepened from pale pastels to rich and vibrant shades. They smoke formed into an arch, and the twins and their court stepped through.

With a simple glance you could see the power rolling away from them, you could ignore the overwhelming feel of power, just look. Drey and Draco were wearing the same outfits they had been when they emerged from the forest. The colours blended perfectly with their ivory skin and the diamonds on their brows completed the picture of opulence. On either side, but slightly behind them stood Blaise and Pansy, then on Draco's side, Harry stood in a slight backwards diagonal to Blaise, by Drey Bill stood in the same position by Pansy. Behind those two were Seamus and Neville respectively, and then Vince and Greg, looking threatening, even Neville managed to pull off a detached, aloof, look, that while seeming very out of place also suited him impeccably well.

The court stayed where they were, scanning their eyes of the students, their gazes forbidding talk or movement. The twins moved forward in perfect unison, slinking towards the professors' table. When they were a few feet away from the raised dais they stopped. Silence reigned and the Gryffindors in the court worried about whether or not the two Weasleys were going to be accepted in practise, not just theory.

The silence continued for several minutes before Charlie and Ginny stood and moved to stand by Pansy and Neville.

"We're leaving the dungeons."

The words snapped through the room like a whip, before Dumbledore could object Draco continued.

"We're well within our rights. You may not have accepted it, but you know who we are and what we are called. We and our court are allowed to be in that suite, and we will be."

"Charlie and Ginny Weasley are going to be joining us as well. It has come to our attention that they have been defending us against their housemates. And while we need no protection, it was a sweet thought, besides, their friends are part of our family, and no one hurts one of our own."

"What suite are you talking about Mr Malfoy?"

It was an obvious attempt to stall for time, obvious to anyone who was looking anyway. The Gryffindors that were standing with the Slytherins, three Weasleys, Neville, Harry and Seamus were astonished by the different way Dumbledore appeared to them. He no longer appeared wise, but instead scheming.

While Draco coldly continued the argument with the headmaster Drey was distracted by a mind whispering something about her and her twin that no one here should know. Scanning the minds of everyone in the hall she found the culprit to be Hermione Granger. It shouldn't surprise her really, Granger was smart, very smart, in an ideal world she should have been one of them, they could have used a mind like that. Not that their court wasn't smart enough as it was, but any advantage was welcome. Her mind ran through various ideas on how to approach this before deciding on the one that would infuriate her brother the most. Drawing her mind back to her corporeal surroundings she saw her brother locked in a staring match with Dumbledore, McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick and a few of the other teachers, Snape had moved down and was standing beside Draco. Deciding to catch up on what had obviously been a most interesting spat she stepped in, in a hurry to talk to Hermione.

"Professor, why are you bothering. We and our court are going to move into the Prince's suite because we have every right to. If you ask any Slytherin, present, graduated or not in school yet, who the Slytherin rulers are they will say Draco and Dracaena Malfoy, because we are royalty. And you were the one who came up with the rule that said only royalty could stay in those rooms. Hoisted by your own petard.

Draco if you would take everyone down to their new home, I have some business to attend to."

With that she and her twin turned on their heels and walked back down the aisle between tables. Her brother wasn't sure what was going on but there was no way that he would show dissention between the two, this was too moment was too critical to their plans.

He showed no surprise when she split off, took hold of Granger's arm and they disappeared in a haze of coloured smoke before any Gryffindor could voice an objection.

Ignoring the looks being sent his way, looks formed of emotions from lust to hate.

He walked through the path his court created for him and knowing they would follow him he walked out of the hall and headed down to the dungeons. On his way he scanned the minds of his court, Blaise and Pansy were still angry at the idea of the twins using the potion and the fact that they had been conned into helping to modify the spell. Bill was wondering where Drey had disappeared to, Seamus was fixated on Blaise, Neville was worried about Drey and thinking some very curious things about the youngest Weasley, Greg and Vince were thinking about each other, again, and Charlie was absorbed with thoughts of Pansy. And Harry, Harry was thinking about him, some very interesting thoughts about him, he could get used to that. He was just dissolving into a very nice daydream when he snapped out of it. Drey was insisting n setting him up with Harry, she had been talking about it again in the temple. There was no way he was going to let it be this easy for her, or if it was he was going to make sure no one knew about it for a while yet.

One part of his mind had stayed detached from his mental wonderings and he had guided everyone through a maze of shadowy corridors, which would have seemed to be the embodiment of everything Slytherin to members of the other houses.

Five minutes after they had left the hall they arrived in front of a wall that was about 11 foot wide and 16 foot high, and was completely covered in a beautifully woven tapestry.

Along the base a snake was stitched in metallic green threads, his eyes were stitched in black, and there were tiny silver threads running along his body. Above him was a blue night sky filled with silver stars and a silver/cream crescent moon, and just outlined in black behind the stars was a forest. Two black and silver dragons were painstakingly stitched onto each side, their tails crossed their bodies to meet at a point just beneath the largest star. Pale golden flames rippled from their jaws across the top of the tapestry forming a border of fire. It took everyone's breath away, except Draco who had seen it many times before in his dreams.

Slowly, reverently, the multi-coloured blond stepped forwards and gently placed a hand at the point where the dragon tails met. As if recognizing the touch threads unravelled, and a doorway formed. Excited yet still silent they all stepped through, into their new home.

The room they walked into was large; a fireplace was in the centre of one wall, surrounded by bookshelves. Portraits and tapestries filled the walls; the furniture was made of mahogany, and black, silver and green velvet. It was very simple and yet riches, taste and royalty screamed elegantly from every item in the room, from the white fur carpet to the onyx statues. The room's most unusual feature was the glass ceiling, which showed the depths of the lake.

The corridors leading to this room led from the school out to the grounds and under the lake. Above them they could see deep blue waters, fish floating by, there was a mermaid swimming in their peripheral vision, yet when they looked again she was gone. It was a more magical site than any spell they had ever seen.

Dragging their gazes away from the site above them they scanned the balcony that ran round the room, at intervals along the balcony were mahogany doors with names inscribed in flowing script. Bill and Drey were sharing a room; all of the other rooms were interconnecting, which would be unknown to their occupants until the relationships were solidified. Blaise and Seamus already had an interconnecting door and the room would meld into one when they chose.

Chattering to each other they all went to see their rooms, the silent spell was broken, but when Ginny and Charlie moved to come talk to him he shook his head before moving to the door labelled Draco, they would do no more until Drey came back from wherever she had disappeared to.

**Sarah Frost (and AyanamiAino as you agree with her)**

I'm sorry about the paragraph breaks, I did put them in there but they didn't show up, along with some italics on my other stories, but it should be fixed now.

Draco is Latin for dragon, and dracaena is Latin for female dragon. As they're twins I thought it would be a good name for her.

I just thought the hair would be different, and it'll be explained in more detail later.

She has been in exile for a reason, which will be explained in the next chapter.

I'm sorry if you don't like the beginning bit in Egypt, I just wanted to put a contrast between how pure she appears to be and what everyone things when they find out she's a Malfoy.

As for him wanting to be his father, and him being a spoiled brat, things are not always what they seem.

Drey was using glamour when she met Bill, and people knew the twins not the court and their colours.

In this story Harry just wanted to let go of everything, and if that meant talking to a friend's girlfriend and her family, then so be it.

I'm sorry if the story doesn't meet up to your exacting standards but I don't do reality so well, even if it's a book reality, I prefer to make up my own.

Basically, if you don't like it don't read it.

**Un morceau de craie**

It looks as though I'm going to be failing my French exam.

**blondebouncingferret**

Haven't you ever read the Narnia Chronicles, brother and sister can be King and Queen.

**Starr Light1**

Harry and Draco are going to get together in the next few chapters

**DragonSpitfire22 – Morena Evensong – Beserker Nightwitch**

Thanks


	11. Drey and Hermione

All I own is Drey

_Flash back to dinner_

_In the great hall_

"…_I have some business to take care of."_

_With that Drey walked over to Hermione and teleported the two of them up to one of the towers. _

_Ignoring the wild looks being sent her way by the bushy haired girl Drey conjured up several large soft cushions and arranged them on the floor; with a nod she indicated that Hermione should join her._

"_What do you know?"_

_Dumbfounded Hermione stared at the blonde, her mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air. _

"_Don't just stand there. Sit down and tell me what you know about my brother and I. And don't tell me that you don't know what I'm talking about because I could hear your mind thinking about it in the hall._

_Look, I know you're not stupid, and I have nothing against muggle-borns, I just want to know what you know about us and how you figured it out."_

_Deciding she might as well chance it Hermione seated herself on a large purple cushion, wriggling around to get comfortable, she felt a burning need to know if she was right about her assumptions. _

"_I thought I knew when I first saw you and Draco come out of the forest. I remembered seeing a scene like that in 'Magical Mythology: Older Races'. _

_You two made the same picture that the elven royal family did, only there were more of them. When I realised that I did research in the library. _

_The royal family were killed off about three hundred years ago. There was a war; ice elves attacked the star and fire elves. Fire fought back, the battles almost destroying the court the elven world. Star elves were more remote, but they did fight, except then the prince was killed. Queen Nessa wouldn't let any more elves die, so she took her guards and the closest members of the star court, a few fire elves, and an ice elf that had come to them before the war. _

_Together they cast the joining spell, it gathered the blood of fire, star and ice together and sent it into the sky, the legend says that the blood floats around the world in a cloud of dust, red, gold, silver and blue, supposedly searching for humans who have the capacity to hold the elven magic and control it. All of the elves are frozen until then, waiting for the elven line to be reborn into the world."_

_Hermiones's voice died away and the top room of the tower was filled with slow clapping. Leaning against the cold, damp, grey stone Drey's hair shone out brightly. Her face was blank, all emotion hidden away, the only movement in the round space was Drey clapping._

"_Well done, very well done."_

"_I wanted to know, I've always wanted to know as much as I could and this seemed important."_

_Blushing Hermione lowered her head; she hated telling people that, as far as any of the Gryffindors were concerned she was just a boffin, but it always felt something more, something desperate wanting her to pick up books and find out what was in them, which sounded completely ridiculous. _

"_Blaise is like that, Pansy too, as soon as they get their teeth into an idea they just don't let go. They could probably use your help actually, you've heard of the coronation potion I assume. I thought you would have. We need to find a way to split it between Draco and myself, three brains would probably be better than two, and you cane be neutral ground for when they start yelling at each other, which they always seem to do."_

_Drey had not looked away from Hermione, who at some point had lifted her face to look straight into Drey's eyes. _

"_I'd like to help. But, when did you two first find out that the magic had been reborn in you?"_

_Drey smiled, her eyes misting over with memories._

"_We always knew our magic was different, when we were little we could think something and it would happen, if we wanted it, it would appear. Mother knew, and so did some of the house elves. _

_Mother told us to keep it from father but he found out when we were five._ _He tried to bind the power, but it didn't work, that's when he made the decision to separate us. He thought that if our power could be trained it would be a great asset to Voldemort. It also ensured that he could control us. If I did anything he could take it out on Draco, if Draco did anything the Headmaster at the school I was sent to could take it out on me._

_But I think it was the court that really let us know that we were something different, and then we researched, but that only told us the detail of what we already knew. We had always liked mythology, and we remembered reading about how the elves created their court._

_When we were about five Blaise, Pansy, Greg and Vince were spending a few weeks of the summer with us, we were in a clearing in the woods and we were playing King and Queen, you know how you play that when you're little, we were pretending we were in Narnia actually, and using the spells that one of the elvish courts used. _

_Draco and I were King and Queen, obviously, we were making up spells to create a magical court, and it actually happened. The colours appeared in their hair, and all the colours in our hair, they weren't very strong, but the bonds were there. We hid them, but as time passed and our powers grew the bond grew stronger. _

_But then we were split up, Draco had to use glamour to hide his colours, and they faded from the other four, without both of us there to keep solidifying the spells as our power grew. _

_But now we're back, and reunited._

_Doesn't make much sense huh."_

_Hermione giggled, it sounded so, magical, for lack of a better word._

"_What are you going to do now?"_

"_First worry about the coronation potion, see if we can get it to work. Then we'll try and get all of our land back again, bits and pieces have been chipped away by the Ministry and Voldemort, various estates in France, things like that. And then, we'll just see what happens."_

_There was silence for a few moments until Hermione spoke up quietly._

"_Can I meet them, the court I mean, and help you with your spell."_

_Drey smirked, and then the tower was filled with coloured smirk as they disappeared._

Please review people, I know this probably didn't make much sense but I want to know what you think.

**flipsides: **I hope you like this chapter as well

**Morena Evensong: **I hope this answers your questions

Please review :)


	12. Oops

I only own Drey

"Where did Drey and Hermione go?"

Ginny was sitting cross-legged on the mahogany king size four-poster bed in Neville's room. She was chewing a piece of her hair and her eyes were following the boy as he puttered around his new home, pulling neatly folded clothes out of his trunk that had mysteriously appeared in the room when he entered and putting them away. The room seemed to have known he was coming; it was decorated like his dream room. The walls were pale green and there were motifs of plants all over them, magical motifs, the vines wriggled across the walls and flowers bloomed. There was a huge mahogany wardrobe, each door had an open rose chiselled into it, and the depressions were filled with aquamarine stones.

"I don't know Ginny."

The words were ground out between his teeth, it was the tenth time she had asked that question in the five minutes that she had been there. Honestly, he was very fond of the girl, everyone knew that, except for her brothers hopefully, that was something he didn't want to get into with people who were all a lot bigger than him.

"Why don't you go and ask Draco or Pansy, I wouldn't suggest asking Blaise, I think he'll be busy with Seamus."

"Because it's Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson!"

She thought it was obvious, she may respect them, but she didn't really understand what she was doing here, all she knew was that it got her away from her prejudiced brother, apart from that she didn't plan to seek them out, Merlin only knew what kind of trouble she could get into.

"Don't say that. They're being so good to you, they didn't want to bring you here, they only did it because we asked you, because we knew that you and Charlie having been getting all the insults from the rest of the Gryffindors because you hung around with us when we were with the Slytherins. Don't talk about them, you don't know them."

His face was flushed bright red and his arms were waving around as he tried to explain to Ginny what couldn't be explained with words.

Unable to explain to her what he meant he just turned around and went back to unpacking, leaving Ginny staring at his back, blushing a little. She knew he was right; they had been kind to take them in here, away from the Gryffindors harassment about their choice in friends. But it was still the Malfoys. When she was a child she heard stories about the Malfoys from her father, how evil they were, and how awful the twins were. It seemed a bit strange now that she thought about it, the kids in those stories would never have accepted someone like Neville into their group of friends.

But she didn't understand how they did it! She had gotten over her little crush on Harry in the summer after second year, and when they came back to school she had noticed Neville when she helped him find Trevor after the sorting. That boy was shy, he was always stuttering, and he never would have been able to say that Blaise would have been 'busy' with Seamus without blushing about eight different shades of pink.

"I'm sorry, it's just, confusing."

"You think I don't know that. For the last five years I've been tormented by Malfoy and his gang, always making fun of me, and this year they're my family, Vince and Greg are my best friends.

It's Drey you know. Before she came back they were all scared, that if they did anything that wasn't typically Slytherin she would be made to suffer for it. But know they're who they're supposed to be, just give them a chance Ginny, please."

"Alright."

Seeing a big smile light up his face Ginny pulled him into a hug that lasted a few seconds too long, gazing into his eyes she leaned in and was just about to kiss him when a voice interrupted.

"NEVILLE, GINNY. WHERE ARE YOU? DREY'S BACK."

Neville jerked away from her and bolted out the door, crashing into an open wardrobe door on his way, just as he was exiting the room he glanced back at her and blushed an even deeper red. With a sigh she followed him, the interruption was probably a good thing, she didn't want to scar him for life, not yet anyway.

Main room 

"'Mione!"

Hermione was assaulted by a black and emerald whirlwind immediately after she and Drey appeared. While Hermione and Harry were engaged with their reunion Drey and Draco were staring at each other, anyone who knew them would have known that they were speaking, most suspected it was just a really close twin bond that allowed them to be so tight, a favourite expression that had once been applied to them was 'thick as two thieves', they had loved it, it became the password for various rooms in the manor for the next few years, it would have continued but Drey was sent away and Draco didn't want that to just be a password for him.

But the actual reason for the two of them always knowing what the other was thinking was telepathy.

"_You two looked very cosy, all cuddled up on the couch."_

"_Mind your own business Drey. And what's she doing here anyway?"_

"_She knows who we are, and she's smart, she could help Blaise and Pansy, and don't change the subject. I told you that you and Harry were meant for each other."_

"_I know she's smart, father made me compete for grades with her for the last five years. And leave me and Harry alone, what we get up to, if anything, is none of your business."_

"_Of course it is, I'm your baby sister, it's my job to annoy, guilt-trip and match-make."_

"_Stay out of it Drey, and…………………….what the bloody hell is wrong with Neville, he looks like he's been to hell and back."_

"_I think it was probably Ginny. That's a very strong-minded girl, and she wants Neville. I just hope she comes around to the idea of the rest of us, Neville won't give her a chance if she doesn't." _

"_Hmm, should we deal with this lot, they don't seem to be able to cope with the new arrival."_

"_I suppose we should."_

"Blaise, Pansy, Hermione's here to help with creating the new spell for the coronation. Don't give me that look Pansy, I know you like doing everything yourself but you said it yourself, we're going to need all the help we can get."

"I'd love to help. I read about something like this earlier actually, when I was checking to see if I was right about Draco and Drey, I knew it'd be useful at some point but I didn't think it would be this soon."

The twins took several steps back from the group, looked at each other and gulped, this wouldn't end well.

"What do you mean, checking if you were right about Drey and Draco, what were you checking?"

The legends about the elves of course, fire, ice and star elves. Draco and Drey are the vessels for their reincarnated and joined power.

"WHAT?!"

It was roared by every member of the court, Hermione bit her lip, she wasn't supposed to say that.

Morena Evensong: I'll explain how she met Bill in the next chapter when they're explaining everything else.

Beth5572: thanks

Silverone3: thanks, I'm trying

Flipsides: here's the next chapter for you

Please review people :D


	13. Explanations

I own Drey, unfortunately that's it

In the silence following Hermione letting the cat out of the bag Draco explained what she had been talking about, to the increasing astonishment of their friends.

"Elves, there are elves now, you never mentioned elves. How could you not mention that you were the vessels for that spell? I remember when we were reading that, you had to have known but you never mentioned it, how could you not mention it. This is just so irresponsible, how could you not tell us this, we're you're best friends, you're court. HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL US!!!?"

Pansy finished her tirade with an ear splitting screech, unfortunately she received no answer from the twins, they were string at the decorative bowl on the table, it was actually shaking from the force of her scream.

"Don't you dare ignore me you…"

She screeched again, sounding like a wild animal, and then she lunged at the twins, arms flailing, only to be caught around the waist by Charlie Weasley who pulled her onto his lap and held her arms at her sides.

"Thanks Charlie."

The calm statement from Draco elicited another shriek from Pansy that was muffled by Blaise slapping his hand over her mouth. Which earned him an infuriatingly calm nod from Drey.

"Hysterical though she is, Pansy does have a point, why didn't you ever tell us."

Blaise looked perfectly at home talking while holding Pansy's mouth shut. Drey and Draco didn't look so calm anymore though, actually their faces did, but their eyes were flicking from face to face, trying to find a way out.

"We never really wanted to admit it. I mean, we did, in a way, we're still Malfoys, power's good, especially this amount of the stuff. But it's still weird, besides we were going to tell you."

"When?"

That came from Blaise, Vince and Greg, and there was a muffled 'mvhenm' from Pansy.

"When it actually mattered! We can't use all of this power until our seventeenth birthday, that's the age when elves traditionally came into their inheritance and its not as though anything is going to happen before then.

And you knew that we had different powers, you have since the first time you met us."

"What are you extra powers? What?!"

Harry returned the glares everyone was sending him with interest, so what if they were getting all tense, he was curious.

"Telepathy, we've both got that, Drey's empathic as well, both telekinetic, and we can both control the four elements, oh and we can conjure things out of thin air."

"Oh."

Again there was silence, everyone except the four original members of the court was surprised, they knew the twins were different, but they didn't know that they were quite so strong.

Finally Drey broke into the silence.

"Look, we all knew that there was something different about us, I mean, we made a beach from a tiny stream, what the hell did you think we were, normal.

Now, Hermione, Ginny, could you give me a hand with Pansy. Boys, stay out of my room, we're having a girls night."

With that the three girls stood and while Ginny took Blaise's job of holding Pansy's mouth closed while Hermione and Drey made a chair from their linked arms and with a little hep from Charlie the four girls made their way towards the mahogany door that marked the entrance to Drey's domain.

The guys just sat there.

"Charlie, you mind if I crash with you tonight?"

Bill's tone of voice was plaintive and slightly confused and the rest of the males burst out laughing, then Draco conjured up a couple of bottles of fire whisky and the rest of the night was spent in the time old tradition of male bonding. Getting absolutely smashed and reliving embarrassing memories.

Drey's room 

"Pansy, do you promise not to do anything physically violent if we let you go?"

There was no hint of a smile in Drey's voice and her face was motionless. Ginny and Hermione however weren't doing such a good job of hiding their smiles at the sight before them. Pansy Parkinson had been one of the most terrifying girls in Slytherin, and here she was lying on a bed with her arms and legs held down and a hand slapped over her mouth as Drey calmly talked on.

"Pansy!"

With a reluctant nod Pansy agreed and snatched her limbs away from the two Gryffindors as soon as they released them.

"You can't blame me Drey. We used to share everything before you went away, you were by best friend, why didn't you tell me."

There were tears running down the blondes face and the purple lock of hair concealed her left eye. When Drey clambered onto the bet beside her and pulled her into a hug the Gryffindors were astonished. Intellectually they had known that the Slytherins were different than what they had always thought, but they had never expected to see such an emotional display. The tears of the two girls turned into a mix between sobs and laughs, but then Pansy hit the other blond with a pillow, supposedly to persuade her that she was never supposed to keep secrets from her again, but of course Drey couldn't let that pass unchallenged and the battle began.

Hermione and Ginny just stared with their mouths agape at the sight before them, this couldn't possibly be two Slytherins having a pillow fight, and giggling! Then a stray pillow hit Hermione and they had to join in.

Half an hour later 

"Did that actually just happen? Did I really just have a pillow fight with Pansy Parkinson and Dracaena Malfoy?"

All Hermione got in response was a tired giggle from Pansy. Ginny and Drey were sorting through the piles of drinks and food that Drey had conjured up. The red-head had line of sherbet decorating her top lip and Drey was making little butterflies out of nothing and they were flying round the room. The whole thing was insane but it actually blended well together.

"What's your mother like Ginny?"

The question came completely out of the blue, but Drey didn't seem to notice the looks she was getting.

"Why?"

Ginny's response was long and drawn out with a tone of suspicious curiosity.

"Because she'll know by now, won't she, about me and Bill, how do you think she's going to react?"

"Knowing mom, not very well. There'll probably be lots of shouting and screaming, and probably a Howler.

Bt you don't need to worry, that'll all be aimed at Bill. She'll be too freaked out to do anything to you, yet anyway."

"That's comforting."

"How did you two get together anyway? I thought you were supposed to be in a school somewhere."

"I was, but that school was in Egypt. I had a really nice professor at school and he taught me everything about the ancient Egyptian curses. Then the university got a message that Bill's team needed some help, and as he was going to help them he took me along. I was good at it, really good, so I just, stayed there. He was my best friend for about a year, and then we got together, but in my defence, I did think he'd broken up with Fleur."

A soft smile graced Drey's face as she reminisced about the hot desert days. But then a sickeningly sweet "Aaaahhh" drew her out of her memories and directed her attention towards the rest of the room's inhabitants. Sticking her tongue out at them she clambered onto the bed and with a wave of her hand erased any sign of the rubbish that littered the room thanks to their pillow fight and subsequent feast.

"I wouldn't worry about it Drey. Molly's really nice, she'll probably just be glad that her son's got someone."

"She's right Drey."

"I guess.

Hermione are you staying here tonight."

Growing uncomfortable Drey made a quick change of subject that was about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

"Can I?"

"Of course. Shall we all stay in here tonight? I don't want anyone going out there. I can smell the alcohol from here."

While the other giggled Drey conjured up some more beds and nightclothes for the other girls. When they were all in bed Drey was just about to fall asleep when she heard a whispered thank you from the Gryffindors. Too tired and full of cake to worry about it now she decided to ask them what they were thanking her for in the morning and fell to sleep to pleasant dreams about Egypt.

bthatcher2002: thanks, I hope you like this one

Morena Evensong: thanks; I didn't want Ginny to turn her opinions around completely

Silverone3: yeah, that's what the room is like, and thanks

Please review again :D


	14. Drunk Slytherins and Gryffindors

Sorry it's been so long but I was on holiday after my mocks

I own Dracaena, nothing else

"Neville look out! Oh shit."

Seamus sounded so drunkenly dejected in those last two words that all the other boys burst out in hysterical laughter, more at him than the fact that Neville had toppled off the end of the sofa and was lying on his back, legs waving frantically against the arm rest.

"Come on Neville."

Charlie and Bill pulled the drunken boy back onto the couch, ignoring muffled squeaks as bones bent in ways that they weren't supposed to.

They had been there for three hours now, and after one case of fire whisky they were all making wild suggestions about the reason for all the screams in Drey's room, but none of them were suicidal enough, or drunk enough to barge in there after Drey had told them not to.

Draco had been conjuring more and more fire whisky when ever they ran out, along with other muggle spirits, Neville in particular seemed to like Vodka. They were all going to have killer hangovers in the morning but at that point none of them cared, besides they were wizards, they could get rid of hangovers no problem.

"Are the two of you really going to be all right if you do this spell?"

It took Draco a few minutes to translate the slurred speech but once the question made it through his drink soaked brain he opened his mouth to answer only to be interrupted by hysterical laughter coming from Harry. When the other guys asked him what he was laughing at he just shook his head and started laughing even harder, watching him made all the others laugh as well. But eventually Harry got his laughter under control and stated through hiccups:

"A Weasley is concerned about a Malfoy, a Gryffindor is concerned about a Slytherin."

Again they all burst out laughing, however Draco, Blaise, Greg and Vince weren't laughing quite as hard as they had been previously. Somewhere in their sodden brains they were wondering if everything was too good to be true. They knew that Slytherin was the school's disgrace, even though the teachers never admitted it Severus was the only one who accepted them. Bill loved Drey and wouldn't leave, but would the others start to regret what they had gotten themselves into.

"It's not that horrible for you is it?"

Although Draco was still drunk and so the question came out in a laughing tone there was still a serious undertone, Harry was the only one who noticed it though.

"Of course there's nothing wrong with it. It's just strange that's all."

Under the guise of drunkenness Harry staggered over to Draco, bumping into various items of furniture on his way and spilling most of his drink over Vince. When he finally reached the multicoloured blond he threw his arms around him and muttered something about Slytherins being more interesting than Gryffindors, not seeming to realise that he was insulting himself and four of the rooms other occupants in that sentence. Unfortunately he was so far gone he couldn't maintain the balance he needed to continue standing while hugging Draco and so fell into the blonds lap, giggling madly.

"Note to self," Seamus stated randomly "no more alcohol for Harry after tonight, he can't hold the stuff."

"We're all going to need to be drunk in a while Seamus, especially Bill and Charlie."

Still on Draco's lap, neither of them seeming to want him to move Harry nodded his head towards the Weasley's.

"And why is that exactly?"

Blaise drawled, trying, without much success to sound like his usual confident, cunning, Slytherin self.

"Because,"

Harry stated, stabbing a finger in Blaise's direction,

"Ron will have got in touch with Molly by now, and told her that her oldest sons and her only daughter have betrayed their family for Slytherins, and that Bill is dating a Slytherin, has been for over a year. Do you honestly think that they won't need to have a strong layer of drunkenness between them and their mother?

And don't think she'll stop there; she'll come after the rest of us as well. I know Molly, she'll be after all of us, she already thinks I'm like her son and she'll mother you lot as well."

He pointed to each Gryffindor as he spoke. And as one they all gulped, the Weasleys were terrified, their mother may be small but her voice and her temper wasn't. And Harry was right, she wouldn't accept Bill and Drey, she hated the Malfoys, and so did their dad. And, Charlie realised with a sinking feeling, it was very unlikely that they would be any better if he ever got the courage up to ask Pansy on a date, in fact they would probably be exactly the same, if not worse because it was two sons were with Slytherins. Neville and Seamus weren't feeling so confident now either, they had met Molly Weasley and knew just how daunting she could be once she got started. Harry wasn't feeling so hot about the pending storm either.

The Slytherins on the other hand just smirked as Draco conjured another load of fire whisky and vodka. Molly was just like everyone else, they thought they knew them and what they were capable of, but they didn't, not really. They were their father's children and more, and with Drey included, nothing could face them. Draco smirked at the thought of Drey and Molly Weasley facing off, it didn't matter how much his sister loved Bill and wanted his mother to like her, she wouldn't let anyone insult her.

"So sorry to cause you so much trouble."

Draco didn't mean it of course, he was a Malfoy, he loved causing trouble.

"No you're not, and besides, you like causing trouble."

As Harry spoke his face moved nearer and nearer to the Slytherin King, and in a series of coincidences the unthinkable happened. Neville had had so much to drink he couldn't even hold the glass any longer and the silver goblet fell through his fingers and created an almighty racket on the floor, the noise shocked Harry and Draco and they both moved involuntarily, their lips colliding for a split second before they drew away. Of course, due to the amount of alcohol they had consumed neither was about to pass up this opportunity. Their lips joined again and Harry moved around so he was straddling the blond, while at the same time kissing him fiercely, a ferocity that was gladly returned by the boy underneath him.

Completely ignoring the two Blaise reached out for another bottle of fire whisky and slurred;

"Another drink anyone?"

_The next morning_

"Draco wake up!"

With a whimper filled with a horrendous amount of pain Draco attempted to move, but deciding that hurt too much he just decided to stay where he was and let out an indecipherable groan. Around him the other guys were in equally bad straits.

Neville was sprawled over one of the armchairs, hand shielding his eyes, whimpering as Ginny leaned over him, unsympathetically stating that it was his own fault. Vince was slumped on the sofa, Greg leaning on his lap, both unwilling to move. Bill and Charlie were both using each other as supports as they tried to stand, trying, but not quite managing to ignore the stream of unhelpful comments that ran from Pansy's mouth, comments that mainly followed Ginny's train of thought telling them that it was their own fault. Harry was spread-eagled on his back, eyes squeezed shut as Hermione tried to prise him away from him comfortable floor. The very small percentage of the boy's brain that could manage rational thought was telling him that Hermione wasn't usually this uncharitable. Draco was spread out on the same position only he was lying on his front, very slowly rising to his feet with Drey's 'help', although whether he counted shrill, caustic, insulting comments as help he wasn't sure.

As he finally reached his feet he raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun through the water, at that moment he really hated that beautiful ceiling. Then he realised something.

"What the fucking hell happened last night?"

lewna: I'm glad you like it and I hope you like this chapter too.

Beth5572: thanks

Rena Lupin: here's the next chapter for you

Morena Evensong: I hope you liked this chap, and confrontation between Molly/Bill and Drey should be in the next chapter.

Berserker Nightwitch: I am going to focus on all the romances, I think I'm going to do Vince and Greg next

Please review everyone ;)


	15. Meeting with Dumbledore: part 1

Okay. I'm sorry that it's been a while since I've updated, and I'm really sorry if this chapter sucks, but I couldn't get anything out that made sense, and I know this isn't what I said it would be, but I thought it would be better to at least get some sort of chapter up unless I just last the thread of this story completely. So please try to enjoy.

"Bill, Bill. Come on babe, wake up."

Groaning the red head left his lovely dreams and came face to face with silver eyes, blond hair with streaks, and a very bright light behind her head that made him want to scream as he hit his tired eyes.

"Go away. I've just had a bunch of kids screaming charms for an hour, leave me alone."

As he'd closed his eyes he didn't see the malicious grins on the faces of the three girls (Hermione had gone to talk to Ron), or the sympathetic look on his brother's face, he'd just had to deal with kids screaming about unicorns, it wasn't fun when you had a hangover.

"Bill, if we have to go, so do you."

That was Harry, and there were various noises of agreement from all the other boys, and then Bill didn't have a chance to argue before Vince and Greg stepped forward at a nod from Draco and hauled him to his feet.

"Where are we going anyway?"

Bill asked, suddenly realising he didn't have a clue about why he'd been woken up.

"Dumbledore, remember he wanted to see us, to talk about what we're going to do."

He vaguely remembered something about it, but he'd been more interested in downing as much hangover potion as he could, although it didn't seem to be as strong as it should be. Although that might have been Minerva's fault, the way she was glaring at him and Charlie reminded him of when he was a second year and had turned his table into a tarantula instead of a candle into a bird.

He was startled out of his thoughts when he realized that they were already at the statue outside Dumbledore's office.

"Lemon drops."

Bill's stomach started falling as they rode up the staircase; he had a bad feeling that something was going to happen here, something very bad. Oh shit!

"Mum!"

"Bill, Charlie, Ginny."

Her voice was like ice and she was glaring at them as though they were all eleven years old again, or the twins at any age.

"Neville."

"Gran!"

Unnoticed by every one but Drey Neville began to shake, his face had turned white and he was staring at his grandmother in shock. The three Weasleys weren't doing much better, Ginny was hiding behind her brother and all three were hiding behind Vince and Greg. Looking at Draco she could see anger in his face, although no one else would have been able to, and she could understand how he felt. Using her empathy she scanned the feeling of the three adults, Dumbledore had that same layer of intelligent senility covering his psyche, but she could feel the hatred underneath that all the teachers felt for Slytherins, and he wanted nothing more than to remove Harry and the rest of his Gryffindors from their grasp. Neville's grandmother was icy, but although she hated the Slytherins there was a sense of pride there, as though she was proud that Neville had stepped out on his own, but the force of Molly's emotions almost destroyed her composure. The woman hated the fact that three of her children were in this court (how dare she feel as though it was just a children's game), and she was filled with disgust at how close Bill and Drey were standing, obviously suspecting something was going on. Closing her mental doors Dey refocused her mind on the conversation around her.

Molly was yelling at her children, her face as red as her hair, probably not even knowing what she as saying, and the three of them were giving as good as they got, or at least trying, Neville and his grandmother were more discreet, standing in a corner, she earnestly talking, he quietly putting a word in where he could, Harry was violently arguing with Dumbledore, seemingly getting more incensed at every word the headmaster said. She and the rest of the Slytherins were just standing by the door where they had come in, all traces of hangovers had left the boys faces.

"_We have to stop this."_

"_I know Drey."_

"SILENCE!"

The scream that came from both of the twins was followed up by streams of fire erupting by each group of arguers, effectively silencing them. In that split second Vince and Greg telekinetically grabbed the three adult's wands, pulling them over and giving them to Blaise and Pansy as they moved to stand by the twins.

"Professor Dumbledore, would you mind explaining exactly what is going on here. At breakfast this morning you said that this would be a meeting between yourself and us, in order to sort out some problems that you seem to think exist and something that we wanted to speak to you about. There was never any mention about bringing family members into the equation."

The personality that Harry had got used to this term had disappeared; leaving only the Malfoy he had known for the last five years. Drey didn't look any better, the twins were standing side by side and their faces may as well have been carved from ice.

"I believed that it would be best for Mrs Weasley and Neville's grandmother to be present, they were contacted by members of Gryffindor house and were very worried about some of the rumours they were told about. I thought this would be a good time to sort everything out."

"Yes indeed. What do you people think you've done to my children? These boys are teachers; you'll have ruined their reputations, and my youngest, my only daughter, did you have to drag her into this! And give me back my wand."

The irate woman had started to storm towards the twins, but she was stopped by Vince and Greg who seated her in a chair, none to gently, and glared at the other woman in case she seemed to be about to make any threatening gestures. However she seemed content to just watch for the moment.

"First of all Mrs Weasley, could you please explain just how it is that we have ruined the reputation of three of your children. Without resorting to the childish prejudices against Slytherins and Malfoys."

Looking away from his mother who, being the fair minded person she usually was, was struggling to come up with a decent argument that didn't involve those three things, instead he looked to wards Pansy who was standing shoulder to shoulder with Drey, and was shocked by what he saw. This was why everyone was scare of the Slytherins, believed that they were evil; the two girls had their faces covered in an emotionless mask, they looked cold and calculating, fully capable of destroying everyone in this room, all the Slytherins did. And he had no illusions about whether or not they would, if they felt that they had to, actually Drey probably didn't want to destroy her boyfriend's mother, they might just permanently maim her. Deciding that probably wasn't a good idea to let this go on for much longer Charlie gathered up his Gryffindor courage and broke into his mother's tirade.

"Shouldn't we all just sit down and talk about this. Without killing each other.

Well that was it; hope you didn't hate it too much.

Morena Evensong: what Draco hated when he looked when he looked up was the sun reflecting through the water when he had a hangover.

Silverone3: the next coupling will definitely be the next chapter.

lasaireigh: they will remember, but it'll take a while

flipsides: glad you liked it

elvenwolf123321: glad you liked it

lewna: sorry it was abrupt; everything's just gone a bit haywire round here

Please review again :)


	16. Meeting with Dumbledore: part 2

I don't own anything

Regally Drey and Draco took the two seats inform on Dumbledore's desk, their court ranged out behind them. Unfortunately Charlie's suggestion didn't help their case much with Mrs Weasley, she had expected her children to come and join her, seeing them go to stand behind Slytherins was just too much, and she fell down onto her chair in shocked silence. Neville's grandmother sat down closer to her grandson, and Dumbledore just seated himself behind his desk, eyes still twinkling.

"Would anyone like a lemon drop?"

All the old wizard got in return were blank stares, even Harry was amazed at ho the old man he had looked up to was trying to e so controlling. By being the first to break the silence he had set himself up to control the flow of the conversation, but he hadn't quite counted on the twins.

"Mrs Weasley, what exactly is your objection to your children being a part of our court. And may I please just add that only Bill is, Charlie and Ginny have been taken into our suite because of a request from their brother, Bill, Harry and Neville. And if you could please try not insinuating that we are in league with that lunatic half blood who seems to be under the mistaken apprehension that he is all-powerful."

"You're a disgrace to purebloods, all of the Slytherin families are, and it's the thins you're most proud of. The oldest families are supposed to protect and guide the others, they're supposed to be leaders not terrorists, have honour and dignity. We might be poor, but at least we still have those."

Oh shit. Looking at his girlfriends face Bill could tell only bad things would come in response to that, although he did see how his mother had a point. Although Vince and Greg didn't show it outwardly they stiffened, to the outside world they were two stupid thugs, but in actuality they were almost as clever as the twins, and they knew that what Mrs Weasley was saying had no basis except in rumour.

"Really, and how have you protected and guided other wizards and witches. The Weasleys had to sell off everything to pay off gambling debts a hundred years as and you're as poor now as you were then. Never making a decent effort to regain you land or to earn a decent amount of money, instead you fool around and play games with muggle objects. And when trouble comes, instead of standing and fighting like a proper pureblood should, you hide behind Dumbledore's robes. How have you protected the people on your old lands, did you find out what their new lord was like, or did you just forget about them. Have any of your family actually considered your responsibilities, or did you just leave them behind."

"At least we look after our own, the villages on our land are still intact, the people happy, the buildings well maintained. You may not like our methods, but at least we get things done. Everyone thought it was a human-interest stunt, but our grandmother gave the wizarding world a decent social services system, so that wizarding children weren't left to run around with nothing. And yes, our father wasn't all goodness and light, but there's no excuse for you to take you hatred of him and put it on us."

Although Vince and Greg still showed no outward emotion, inside their hearts were pounding, the twins were playing a very dangerous game, their voices were cold to freeze the air around them, and they were leaking power, letting it fill the room, ready for them to call upon if they needed it. Mrs Weasley had turned redder and redder and sunk lower in her chair as they talked. Looking for al the world like a schoolgirl being yelled at by her parents. But their thoughts were interrupted by a slow steady clap.

"Well said Mr Malfoy, Miss Malfoy. I'm sorry if I in any way upset you by being here today, but I anted to ensure that my grandson was all right. Thank you by the way, Neville has always been shy but you seem to have brought him out of his shell. Professor, Mrs Weasley, good day to you both."

And with that she flooed away to Diagon Alley, leaving no time for anyone to argue with her.

"_She's more of a dragon than we are!"_

"_I know. Gods, look Neville, he looks as though he's going to explode."_

It was true, the poor boys face had turned bright red, although that may have been because of embarrassment, or it could have been because Ginny was holding his hand.

"Mum, could we talk to you outside for a sec."

Not giving their mother a chance to argue the three Weasley children hustled her outside, presumably to talk some sense into her. Seeing this as a golden opportunity Draco spoke up about what they had wanted to talk to Dumbledore about. They boys had decided it last night, before everything became a blur, he had a nagging feeling that something had happened with Harry but he didn't have the slightest clue what it was.

"Professor, there is actually something we'd like to talk to you about. As you know, Harry, Vince, Greg and myself are all on the Slytherin or Gryffindor quidditch teams, and as we can't play for Harry's teams, and he can't play for ours, we'd like to talk about setting up another team, with Harry, Drey, Vince, Greg, Blaise, Pansy and myself. Obviously not Bill or Charlie seeing as how they have both left school."

To Vince's surprise the old man took it rather well, there were no screaming fits about taking the best seeker the school had seen for Merlin knows how many years away from his favourite house.

"I suppose that could be arranged, if you are all sure that you no longer want to play for your house teams."

That was it, and at Harry's agreement with Draco, the old guy said it would all be arranged by the first match of the term, which would be Saturday.

That was it really; it was when Harry agreed to the quidditch idea that Dumbledore knew he'd lost him. Well not lost him, he'd still fight on the side of good, his anger against his parents death was stronger than any pull to the dark side. But he would no longer be able to pull Harry out of his pocket, like a muggle magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat and say, go and bolster those peoples morale, or go and stop Voldemort from doing that there. But a small part of his mind had to admit, that if the stories and the power gathered in the room were any indication, it would be a distinct advantage to have these Sytherins on his side, and if they came the rest would follow, he was sure of it.

"Drey, can you just go outside for a moment."

Charlie and Ginny had come back in while no one had been looking and Ginny had plopped herself down by Neville, pulling his hand into hers, much to his embarrassment, looking as though she had been completely drained by whatever had taken place outside. Charlie was just standing by a wall, staring at Pansy, apparently whatever had been decided out there had been taken all of his energy, and he couldn't be bothered to hide what he wanted anymore. Waving back her two bulky bodyguards as they moved to come with her Drey stepped outside to a sight that she didn't really think she'd ever see.

Mrs Weasley, the woman she'd heard such terrifying stories about, was leaning against the stair railing, looking as though all the stuffing had been knocked out of her. Bill was standing a few feet away from his mother, eyes downcast, locks of hair obscuring his eyes. His arms folded as he pretended to be desperately interested in his nails, only looking up when Drey moved his arms and folded herself into them.

The blondes face was still impassive, but she could feel her boyfriend's heart beating like a frightened rabbits in his chest behind her, Mrs Weasley's mouth twitched when she saw where Drey had situated herself, but those were the only reactions she received. And she didn't particularly care. Bill was what was important, and she knew him, knew how much he loved his mother, and knew that whatever they'd done out here had hurt him.

"So, have you decided whether or not you're going to disown them for joining the big bad Slytherin court."

Huh. It would appear that Mrs Weasley wasn't a big fan of flippancy either. Although Bill seemed to be warming up to that particular quirk of hers judging by how his arms were shaking in silent, muffled laughter.

"I'm sorry if I misjudged you." It seemed as though she was going to stop there, but Drey could feel the scorching heat of Bill's stare over her shoulder, an watched the older woman stumble on.

"It's just…well…Bill stop glaring at me. Purebloods are big on family, aren't they? It's just it doesn't matter how old they get, they're still my babies, and I've heard all the stories about you, and the Malfoys have never been nice to my family. What sort of reaction did you expect?"

Drey cut in smoothly before Bill could come to her defence.

"Exactly the one you gave, and I would have been disappointed if you hadn't. My family are the bad guys, I know that and I'm not sorry for it, it makes things easier if everyone is scared of you. But I know how close your family is, and I've heard loads of stories about you all from Bill, you're like our family really. Draco, Mother and I, only we don't show it quite as much.

I know you hate it, but I do love him. Just give me a chance; you might learn to like me. It took him a little while but he got there eventually."

The two women laughed while Bill just stared. She'd done it again, how the bloody hell did she do that.

"Bill stop gawping."

Oh boy. His mother was back in full force.

"I'm still not entirely happy about this you know, especially if what Ron tells me is true and you're sharing a room. But I'll get used to it, I don't have a choice really. I think I'd better get going now, one of your father's muggle toys exploded and there's all sorts of things all over the place."

With a blur of motion she headed into the office, leaving a bemused Bill and a smirking Drey to follow her in.

"Professor Dumbledore, thank you for inviting me to this meeting today. It was nice to see you again."

She was speaking over Ginny's shoulder as she hugged the life out of her. And then the room was filled with her earful goodbyes as she hugged her other two children and Harry and Seamus, and then to everyone's shock she moved onto the Slytherins. Throwing her arms round both the twins and kissing their cheeks. Then Pansy, Blaise, Vince and Greg. Although she had to stretch a little to fit her arms around their muscular frames.

Then with a final good bye she disappeared into the fireplace.

"Well professor, I think that about concludes our business with you today. And we all have things we need to be doing so we'll see you around."

And just like that, they were gone.

I finally updated :) I've had half of this chapter sitting here for ages but I didn't quite know how to finish it. And I know I've been promising Vince and Greg in the next chapter for ages, but it just didn't fit in this one. But I swear on everything that it will be in the next one!

omega-slytherin: thanks, but it might be a while before I finish it

Morena Evensong: the Slytherins are definitely still Slytherins, and it will come out again, and Vince and Greg are more than two mindless gorillas, I know people like that, everyone alays thinks they're stupid but they're really not.

Silverone3: I hope you like this one too

haylz010: it's 'drac-ay-na', I know it's weird but I thought it fit cause it's latin for female dragon.

lasaireigh: I wanted to have one going off the edge and the other one calm

Please review again :)


	17. Vince and Greg

Hey everyone, sorry it's taking me a while to update all my stories at the moment but I have so much coursework to do it's unbelievable.

"Each pair will go into the room labelled with the name of their potion, in there they will find all the books they need to write the background for their potions. Move."

The whole class stood and moved through the door in that had just appeared in their potions room. There was a lot of jostling and shouting, mostly between Ron and Harry. The red head had his arm threaded through Hermione's and was holding her tight to him although why was a complete mystery to Drey as Hermione was her partner, she'd have to spend at least a bit of time with her today.

It took at least three more ear-shattering shouts from Snape before everyone finally managed to find their assigned partner and get into the appropriate room. With a heavy sigh, and a prayer to any gods listening that they wouldn't destroy the rare books he'd spent hours finding for them, although he'd never admit it. He sealed the doors and wandered off to fail some first year Hufflepuff homework.

_Vince and Greg's room_

"Telepathic communication spell. This could be interesting."

The two bulky Slytherins were sitting at the round oak table that took up most of their small chamber. 15 large tomes spread out around them, the yellowing pages had been carefully separated from where they had clung together after years of not being opened, and the air was filled with dust motes that danced in the small beams of light from the flickering torches.

Vince was leaning over the table, looking at a book directly in front of Greg, and Greg was looking at the massive scroll in front of Vince. The world outside of Slytherin house would never know these people. Instead of big thugs, Draco Malfoy's lackeys, these were the two boys who helped First Year's with their homework but not before making sure they would never tell anyone. They had to keep up their reputation as dim-witted bruisers; it was one of Draco's first lines of defence. Everyone hated Slytherins, and very often they started plotting against them, but everyone thought that these two were so stupid that they never believed they could be eavesdropping and reporting everything back to Draco who took care of it.

"So what should we leave out this time."

That was something else they had to do to keep up the pretence, they always left things out of their assignments to keep their marks as low as they could be while still passing.

"Nothing."

"What? But Greg we need…"

"No. We needed to keep doing that before, but now that Drey's here and we're back at full strength, I don't think we need to. And what better class to start in."

"Good point."

That was it really, these two were like the twins, they knew each other so well that there was no need to talk. They moved across the table, one with one book one with another, Vince wrote half a sentence on a piece of parchment, and then Greg took it away from him and finished it. If one wanted something they couldn't reach, the other passed it to them before they could ask. They worked in that way for a couple of hours. They had been given the whole day for this stage of their project, food magically appeared at lunchtime, and they conjured anything else they wanted with a spell they'd been using since they were eight.

"We really should start working again you know."

"Yep."

"That means we have to move."

"Yep."

"Move. As is go from one place to another."

"Yep."

And with that Greg promptly leant his head on the other boys shoulder and closed his eyes. Vince continued talking for a few seconds before realising that his friend was fast asleep. Deciding t wasn't such a bad idea he leant his head on the silky black hair and joined Greg in Morpheus's Kingdom.

It was probably about half an hour later that Vince woke up, heart beating fast from being woken by one of those disconcerting dreams where you think you're falling and then you wake up. He hated those dreams. He started when he heard a sort of snuffly snort, and a head pressed deeper into the crook of his neck, and his efforts at moving were stopped by the arm that flung itself across his chest.

Vince couldn't see the other boys face, but he could hear him mumbling in his sleep. The other Slytherin had always done that. It had always driven Drey to distraction whenever the stayed at the Manor. At the moment he wasn't saying anything concrete, just mumbling slurred vowel sounds under his breath and moving around a lot. It was when he said something in a slightly louder voice that Vince froze. It was just five letters, V-I-N-C-E; he'd probably said that name a million times before, if not more than that. But it was the voice he said it in, the voice that had previously only belonged in Vince's dreams. Low, husky, and passionate.

He couldn't move. He'd always known that he'd loved his best friend; it had really hit him when Drey had been taken from them. Tears had rolled freely down his best friends face, and he would have given anything not to see tears on his other half's face again. Because that's what they were two halves, what one didn't know, the other did. Vince didn't realise how deeply he'd been buried in his thoughts before he was dragged out of them by the feeling of hot breath rushing over his pulse point, followed by a split second contact between Greg's lips and his throat. Unfortunately he wasn't able to revel in the feeling since the loud expulsion of air from his mouth that marked his shock had woken the other boy who was now staring up at him with a flushed face and wide eyes.

"Oh shit."

Morena Evensong: glad you liked it, and there's going to be more about the pureblood responsibilities, at least that's where I think it's going at the moment. My stories tend to go in a different to where I originally intended.

Silverone3: I didn't think that Ginny and Neville would be too overt about getting together because they're basically really shy characters.

Lasaireigh: glad you like it.

4k: if you don't like it, don't read it.

Elvenwolf123321: glad you like it.

Lucifer's Toy: hope you liked this update too.

Lewna: hope you liked this chapter.

Please review again.


	18. Developments

Unfortunately I don't own anything except Drey.

"Shit! Oh Vince I'm so sorry! Merlin! I'm so sorry!"

Vince didn't have a chance to say anything since Greg had shot to his feet and scurried over to the opposite wall, pacing up and down its length. Occasionally his eyes darted over to Vince, but then they pulled away again. His usually pale skin was flushed an unbecoming red, after the tenth millisecond long look at Vince he started banging his head against the cold stonewall. Vince could hear him mumbling something but he couldn't do anything about it, he was still in shock.

He knew Greg, had his whole life, inside out and back to front. But ever since they were about eleven there had been a part that had broken away from his best friend and had been kept separate from him. But he could still read his expressions, the other boy had had a crush on a business associate's daughter when they were ten, the look he'd worn when she'd found out was exactly the same as he was wearing now. Mortified, absolutely bloody mortified. It was only when Vince saw the other boys head pull back and begin its journey towards the wall with a large yellow and black bruise decorating his right temple, like a tribal tattoo, that he was able to move again. He jumped to his feet, faster than anyone outside of Slytherin would have thought he'd been able to and headed over to his friend.

"Watch your head."

Not the cleverest thing he could have said, but then he'd been hiding book smarts, he'd never been all that good with people smarts. But the swiftly purpling bruise on his friends face only accented the glare he got in response.

"Look…Vince…I'm…I'm just…I'm sorry alright, just forget it…I'm sorry...I never meant to let you know...never."

Then he started banging his head again. Meanwhile Vince was in shock; the last bit had been said quietly, as thought they hadn't meant it to come out. Why the bloody hell was this all happening at once. First Drey comes back, comes to school, the court gets larger, they get new powers, the twins were planning on using the coronation spell, and now this happens. It was like a clichéd book, everything happens at once and everything is all revealed, like a veil being pulled back. And that's especially what it was in their case; only one thing had been hidden between them. He'd concealed how he felt for Greg, what he felt that was more than just friends/brothers/comrades in arms, and apparently Greg had been hiding the same thing. So deciding that there was only one way to finish this before his best mate ended up with a concussion he embraced the cliché of every romance story ever written. Grabbed his friends shoulder and swung his around, stared into those gorgeously confused eyes for a split second before leaning in and kissing him. He didn't even give Greg a chance to argue with him, just slammed him against the wall and twisted his fingers around the other boy's robes. For a few seconds he didn't respond but Vince didn't care, he'd waited years for this, feeling those soft lips against his, besides he knew that in a few seconds Greg would either kiss him or send him flying into the opposite wall. He was hoping it was the first but you never knew with Slytherins. But then, merciful Gods, those lips started moving against his, opened slightly so their tongues could twist together and swirl around, exploring each others mouths. While Vince kept Greg against the wall the other boy's hands were moving over his shoulders, down his back. They stayed like that for what seemed like hours, until they had to pull away for lack of oxygen.

"Huh…what…bloody hell…you…I…we…what the…"

"I told you to watch your head Greg, now look what you've done. You can't even finish a sentence."

Damn. He'd this was the bad part of the court, they were linked to the twins and so sometimes they came out with the stupid sarcastic comments that the twins always had at the ready. He was going to try again but then he saw the smirk being tossed in his direction. There was quiet for a few moments, neither wanted to break the silence first, but then Greg started fumbling in the pockets of his robes, a few muffled curses falling from his reddened lips before he pulled out his wand.

"Tempus."

14:13 appeared in green, wavy letters floating above the tip of his wand.

"We'd better get back to work."

"Yeah."

And that was it really. They didn't need to talk about it; it was just a new facet of their already layered friendship. So they went back so work, but this time they purposely brushed their hands against each other when they reached for books, Greg leant his head on Vince's shoulder when they were both looking at the same book or vice versa. When their hands were cramped from writing too much they stopped and whispered to each other, the minute details that they'd had to keep secret from each other. Things like when they'd first realised this new extension of their feelings, what was going to happen in the future.

Before they knew it was five o'clock and the doors swung open, they could hear the chattering of all the other teenagers as they passed by and scathing comments from Snape about the minimal amount of work that seemed to have been done by some pairs. Smirking at each other they gathered up all their pieces of parchment and joined the throng that was depositing their work on Snape's desk. As they walked they ignored the staring from other students at the sheer mass of their work, but because they were so involved in each other they didn't see the twins walking behind them.

The two multicoloured heads were close together, arms loaded with parchment, Harry and Hermione were walking behind them, they were whispering too each other as well. If the two Slytherins had been looking they would have seen two things.

First Draco and Drey, heads very close together, and whispering:

"I told you, all we needed to do was trap them together for a couple of hours and they'd work it out."

"Why now? They've been stuck alone together for hours before, why are you so convinced that they're together now."

"Because of the link between them as protectors, it's opened their minds up to each other. And I'm an empath, that's how I know, you're a telepath, scan their minds if you don't believe me and you're eyes are shut.

Besides you do believe me, you just want to get out of paying me. 5 galleons if they get together today. Pay up."

Behind the smirking Drey and pouting Draco the two Gryffindors were deep in conversation.

"What do you mean you nearly kissed him!"

Hermione hissed, eyes darting forward to the silver haired boy in front of her.

"I mean I nearly kissed him. We were eating lunch and he as telling me this story about the old court when they kids and I just wanted to kiss him. But the weird part…"

"Weird part? Don't you mean weirder part."

He just glared at his friend and continued.

"It didn't feel like the first time I'd nearly done something like that."

"What?"

Hermione had seen a lot of strange things since she'd met Harry, been involved in a lot of strange goings on. And this whole court thing, with a group of Gryffindors effectively deserting their house for Slytherins. But knowing that Harry wanted to kiss Malfoy was just going a bit far, and what did he mean by that last bit, she asked him but the answer was no better.

"I don't know. I was just leaning in and it felt so familiar."

Oh boy. She knew that look, he was falling hard!

"Look I've got to go and talk to Drey about something, okay. We'll finish this later.

And Harry, you haven't kissed Malfoy before, have you?"

"Course not Hermione, don't be silly."

He laughed and so she darted ahead, putting it out of her mind for now, so she didn't hear him whispering behind her.

"At least I don't think I have."

* * *

"Did you see that?"

"Yes."

"Was it what I thought it was?"

"Yes."

"Why."

"I have no idea."

"We need to go through the dungeons to get back to our place don't we?"

"Yes."

"Can we go to the library and hide from them until they're in bed tonight or something?"

"Gods yes."

With that the two red headed brothers spun around and marched back the way they'd come. Steadfastly ignoring the groups of Slytherins dotting the dungeon passages. Walking as fast as they could they reached the library in record time and immediately headed for a dark corner away from any of the kids. All they'd been faced with all day was their kids in their classes staring and whispering about Bill and Drey and the traditionally Gryffindor Weasleys taking their places along side the Slytherins. Bill had nearly punched one Hufflepuff 7th year who'd been saying that the three Weasleys and Harry had betrayed the light and were working for Voldemort. Instead he hadn't he'd just given him a detention that he'd come up with later, in fact he'd probably get the Slytherins to help him, they should know some good things to put in the mother of all detentions.

Bill was dragged out of his thought by a resounding crash on the table in front of him, and the feel of a glare emanating from Madam Pince. Charlie was standing in front of him, his face matching the colour of his hair; barely visible over the heap of books he'd just thumped down onto the floor. Well, it wasn't really a heap, there were just three but they were massive and covered in dust, Charlie's vibrant red hair was covered in the grey particles.

"What the bloody hell are these? I thought we were just hiding from the Slytherin kids?"

"We are, but we might as well do something useful while we're here. These are the only books they've got on ice, fire and star elves. I thought we might as well find out about what we've got ourselves into."

That said they started reading. Only it wasn't quite that simple, the books were written in old English, in cursive, flowery letters that were difficult to decipher. Some passages had been translated from the original elvish, all the different dialects, several for each type of elf as the language changed over time, and so there were often different words available for one space, each of which completely changed the tone of the passage.

"You're worried about her aren't you?"

Bill glanced up from the line he'd been reading for the last ten minutes, and stared at his brother, his mouth twisted in a sardonic smirk.

"Am I worried? I just read a chapter that says my girlfriend is going to be stuffed full of elvish powers and then expected to travel to a place that no one knows where it is and wake up said elves after a few thousand years. Why the bloody hell would I be worried?"

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you."

"Yes it does."

He slouched down and stuck his lower lip out, doing a very good impression of a sulking four-year-old boy. Charlie would have tried to talk to him but there was no point he was right, he should be worried about Drey, hell, he was worried about Pansy and they weren't even together. He was worried about all of them, he knew there was no way that the court would let the twins do this on their own, and he and Ginny wouldn't let their friends go on their own either.

"Come on Bill, classes are over and everyone should be back in their common rooms by now. We can get back in without anyone seeing us."

"Good. And the first thing we do is find out what the bloody hell those Slytherins thought they were doing."

"Right."

Sorry it took a while to get this one up, but I wanted to make it a lot longer than the last one.

Lewna: hope you liked this chapter too.

Morena Evensong: with Snape always favouring the Slytherins I thought he might like teaching but he has to be so horrible to the other kids because none of the other teachers are particularly nice to the Slytherins, and as there are more of them he has to make up for it.

Tempest Tamer: Glad you like it so far, and I hope you keep doing so.

Haylz010: sorry it took so long.

Silverone3: hope you like this chapter too.


	19. Christas Holidays

Unfortunately all I own is Dracaena.

"They were doing what?"

"Why the bloody hell would they do that?"

The two exclamations came from Neville and Seamus, Harry, Hermione and Ginny were still in shock over what the two oldest Weasleys had told them.

Slytherins **bowing** to Gryffindors, even former Gryffindors, it couldn't be.

"What are you so surprised about? You two are part of our court. It's a sign of respect."

Drey then dismissed the problem and went back to talking about some modifications for the coronation spell with the other Slytherins. It took them a few minutes to realise that everyone else was silent, still staring at them with shock.

"What?"

This time it was Pansy, her voice a little bit nervous, but when they were all staring at you it was a very weird feeling, especially those blank, kind of accusing stares.

"Slytherins are the proudest people in this school! They don't bow to anyone, not even other Slytherins, never mind if they're called the court or not. They just wouldn't do it."

"'Called the court!' 'Called the court!'"

Draco's voice rose in disbelief.

"Do you still not see it? The reason we're called the court isn't just because of a spell that worked when it wasn't meant to when we were younger, and the bonds just getting stronger over time.

When Salazar Slytherin first created Slytherin house it lived in harmony with the other houses, but as time passed the other three pulled away. Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff didn't agree with Salazar's belief that there was no black magic, no spells or potions that are inherently evil. Just magic and power and those who used it. As those three houses unified against him Salazar created his own world within his house, complete with a ruling system. The theory as that while the students of the other houses were taught magic to the old laws and codes, complete with all the old honour rituals, Slytherins weren't treated as fairly, so they had to learn all of the honour stuff within the house, and that was the job of the King and Queen and their court. That being us now.

It was always kept hidden, but now with our public acceptance of the court and new members there's no need to hide it anymore. Just ignore it.

Come on you lot, we need some of the library books for this, and the Slytherins walked out, leaving the Gryffindors to wonder. Neville was flabbergasted; his family had always told him that Slytherins were evil soulless wizards, only allowed in Hogwarts because of tradition and what they could do if they weren't trained. But not only had he found out how nice they were, even his Gran had been civil when she saw them. But they had a proper in house system for the old ways, or at least they did at one point, and if it had disappeared Drey and Draco would probably bring it back. It was incredible.

There was silence as everyone digested what they had been told, but it was punctuated by a loud crash as Harry threw a crystal glass against a wall, shouting: "It's all his fault!" Over and over again, and when asked who's fault what was he said:

"Ron, he's the one who told me how evil Slytherins were, Draco was just trying to be nice that day in Diagon Alley, an he didn't know who I was, Ron did! Draco and I could have been together…friends I mean…for years and we weren't because of that bloody redhead. No offence guys."

"None taken."

"You've got a point."

The rest of the evening was spent on autopilot, they had dinner in their suite and Hermione stayed and for once didn't object to the use of house elves. No one said anything when she went into Ginny's room later that night and slept on the large sofa. The court didn't return until much later that night, and immediately Drey noticed Hermione's presence. A quick conference was held between the six Slytherins, using no words, mental or verbal, their eyes said everything they needed to hear. While Vince and Greg went into Ginny's room, being careful not to make a noise, and carried her out, making sure she was still asleep, Drey and Draco opened the door and they carried her through. There was a soft thump as her trunk landed and then the Slytherins left her in peace. As they walked away there was movement on the door, and Hermione was engraved on the mahogany.

Time passed by in Hogwarts and Christmas approached, the morning after that revelatory night had been interesting. Hermione had seen that she wasn't in Ginny's room, seen a large room similar to her friend's, her trunk on the floor, had immediately run outside screaming intelligible words, and promptly tripped over. Of course the whole thing had been excessively funny to the others, but after they had explained things and she had spent the next few hours acting like a vegetable things had worked out very well. Ron had of course caused problems, shouting, heckling, hexing. One day Hermione had come home with skin that continually changed colour, luminous green, hot pink, day-glo orange, the list went on and on. The court fixed it of course, but unfortunately for Ron and the other Gryffindors they had chosen such bright colours that Hermione's eyes were affected. It took everyone there to hold Drey back; meanwhile they missed Draco and Blaise. The Gryffindor common room hasn't been the same since, neither had Ron, his hair was still growing back from where the streak down the middle had been shaven away, and some of the worst bruises still lingered.

That had marked the final separation from the Gryffindors, Seamus and Blaise were ever apart anymore, the Irish boy and Dean had been just as close as Harry and Ron, and when Seamus had come stumbling into the suite once, practically in tears because of the things Dean had been saying to him. Blaise had had to be locked into his room for the next few hours with Draco and Drey. According to Pansy he always got into really awful rages when someone he loved was hurt, and it was better to let him work it out with the twins until it became a calculated anger instead of the fiery passionate ones. He hadn't actually killed dean, but he had come close, and he hadn't left his boyfriend's side since, and the threatening figure he cut when he staked through the hallways, robes swirling behind him. That hadn't been it of course, the other houses had joined in, and the first years in particularly got into a lot of fights trying to prove their loyalty to their houses. There were other little things, incidents with teachers that really didn't bother anyone except Hermione, Ginny, and in a smaller fashion Neville. Those among the teachers who hated the Slytherins were taking it out on the court and the house, especially McGonagall for the loss of two thirds of her Golden Trio. But the court banded together, points that were unfairly taken away in Transfiguration and Herbology (that really hurt Neville), were given back in Charms, Care of Magical Creatures and Potions (that had shocked the Gryffindors).

Their potion projects were progressing nicely, Hermione had nearly had a heart attack when she found that her and Drey's project was tied for top with Harry and Draco and Vince and Greg, she hadn't been able to speak for ten minutes. But that passed and now the three of them usually spent several evenings week, if not more talking about topics that no one else particularly cared about.

The Quidditch pitch was where all the animosity really came out Slytherin and Court games against other houses degenerated from the good quality, skilled games that Madame Hooch and the rest of the teachers wanted to encourage. Instead there were violent altercations in the air that sent many people to hospital, one awful example when Ron dive-bombed Slytherins seeker, a very petite third year girl, very delicate, who had been in the hospital wing for a week afterwards. The first Court vs. Slytherin game had been a two weeks after that game. For those few on the side of the Slytherins it had been a wonderful game, for anyone else it was a nightmare. The court was obviously playing with the Gryffindor team, Drey, Draco and Blaise hadn't dropped the quaffle once. If a bludger did mysteriously decide to head right for Drey's broom, nearly breaking the wood and her leg, and causing her to loose the quaffle, another timely bludger sent it flying into Blaise's hands, and from there straight into the goal post. The whole team was playing with the quaffle, only the chasers were shooting or holding the ball, but brooms and bludgers had collided with the red ball more than once and sent it on it's correct path. Ron had been made the new Gryffindor seeker, Harry had a fit apoplexy, Draco and the other Slytherin boys weren't much better. But then they had decided that they might as well have some fun with the redhead, and so the whole team had headed into the forest, and for the rest of that day they had taught Harry how to act. Over the years that Draco had been playing seeker opposite Harry he had learnt how his face changed once he saw the snitch, a subtle twist on the left side of his mouth, a miniscule rise in his left eyebrow (Harry had been amazed and strangely pleased at how much attention Draco had been paying to him), of course those gestures had to be exaggerated because of the Weasel's miniscule intelligence. But with a bit of practice Harry had been able to direct the red head anywhere he wanted (usually into the stands) by pretending that he'd seen the snitch. The court had kept the game going that way for an hour, and the final score had been 310 to 0. Needless to say they hadn't been that popular with Gryffindor.

But by that time the frequent spats had become a daily part of Hogwarts life, Ginny, Hermione, Seamus and Harry had stopped being so upset by Ron's disloyalty, Neville had never been that close to Ron, or many of the other Gryffindors. He got along well with most of them, but Ginny was his best friend, and as she was there it wasn't really a problem for him, he could just shake the comments off. The two older Weasleys didn't really care what the kids thought of them, if they heard anything in their lessons or in corridors they gave the perpetrators the worst detentions in the history of Hogwarts, it was a rapidly growing school of thought that the two oldest Weasleys were worse than the twins. A seventh year Hufflepuff had called Drey and Pansy 'Slytherin whores', as well as some other, even worse names, and the two red-headed teachers had brought the two girls along with them on the detention, to help supervise. That was three weeks ago and the seventh year hadn't looked the same since.

It was a week before Hogwarts broke up for Christmas and all the ex-Gryffindors were wondering what would happen. They didn't want to ask if the Slytherins were also staying at school, because they didn't really want to know if they were going to be deserted in the castle. Bill told them not to be stupid, that of course the Slytherins would stay with them, but everyone told him that was because Drey was his girlfriend. None of what any of them was thinking was actually making that much sense. Charlie and pansy had been flirting and spending a lot of time together, but they hadn't actually said if it was a relationship or anything so he had no claim on her time, Seamus didn't want Blaise to feel obligated to stay with him, Harry wanted to be with Draco over Christmas, but wouldn't say anything to him. They had been growing closer in the last few weeks, spending time together in the suite or flying together over the Forest, but he was holding back from Draco, and the other boy knew it, a few weeks after that drunken night he had remembered what he and Draco did. He remembered kissing him and not stopping, and liking it and never wanting to stop. If he had been paying attention he would have known that Draco had also remembered and was holding back. But of course Draco either had it easier or harder that the other boy, he had known about his feelings for Harry for a long time, but he also had to deal with his sister, and that took any step forward he might have made way back.

All of the Slytherins had noticed the ex-Gryffindors withdrawing from them slightly, but they thought it was just the actions of Ron and the teachers. It usually was, and neither of the twins would ever mentally spy on their friends. By various strings of coincidences the subject of Christmas holiday accommodations had never been brought up within the Court. And so the first morning of the holidays was one full of surprises.

"Drey do you know what time the carriage gets here?"

"Eleven thirty Blaise, for the third time half past eleven!"

The vibrant blonde stalked out of her friends room, sweeping into Pansy's, just managing to evade a head on collision with her brother who was dashing into Vince's and Greg's room, shouting something about dress robes. The rest of the Court was sitting in the main room of the suite, lounging all over the couches, not a word had been spoken between them for the last three hours. The others would have asked them what was wrong, but they had let the packing slip away from them and they had woken up late. It was ten thirty and the carriage was due to arrive in an hour. For the next twenty minutes the inner balcony was permanently in motion, Vince and Greg were piling all the trunks and fine leather cases by the door. Eventually the motion slowed and they moved from the gallery to the heap, double checking all their cases. Thirty minutes before the carriage arrived, they were finally done, all of them were spread out over their cases, looking like they'd run a hundred mile marathon. But still the ex-Gryffindors were perfectly still, staring morosely at their friends.

Drey was spread out over her trunk and Pansy's dragon-hide carry-case, her eyes were closed and she was the picture of fatigued exhaustion, but somehow she managed to pull a few syllables out of her voice box.

"I swear we didn't pack that much when we were coming to school."

"I know. And we didn't even pack everything."

"The end of the year is going to be a nightmare."

After Pansy's last statement the whole group groaned, depressed beyond belief, whenever they went away they had house elves to pack for them, none of them had ever got used to packing their own things at school. They always seemed to accumulate things, and they hadn't even been to Hogsmeade that much! Drey had it slightly better; she hadn't had house elves for years, but wondering around Egyptian archaeological camps wasn't exactly conducive for heavy packing. Flickering her eyes open she glared at her red headed boyfriend who was staring at her, a strangely blank look on his face.

"I can't believe you lot have finished packing already."

"Yeah." Blaise chimed in, looking at his boyfriend through exhausted eyes. "When did you pack anyway? I haven't seen you packing anything, and it doesn't look as though you've even moved anything."

"Blaise darling, it doesn't look as though you've packed anything either. You've got as much stuff spread out as you did before we even started."

Grimacing at his smirking friend Blaise, along with the others were totally unprepared for Seamus' answer. His tone was monotone and depressed when he said:

"That's because I haven't packed babe. Why would I? It's not like any of us are going anywhere."

There was an immediate reaction: exhaustion was replaced with surprise and the Slytherin Court components bolted upright into seating positions and shouted out in unified disbelief. Ignoring the slightly scared looks their friends were sending them the Slytherins kept starting disjointed sentences of disbelief. It was entirely possible that they would have kept going until New Years if it weren't for Draco clapping a hand over his sister's mouth and shouting for everyone else to shut up. Taking a few deep breaths he finally managed to get one some words out.

"What do you mean none of you are going anywhere you bloody pillock! You're coming to the Manor with us!"

No one ever said they were polite words. Harry and his fellow Gryffindors looked positively gobsmacked. So in a slightly less sure voice he added.

"You are coming with us, aren't you?"

He was talking straight to Harry, who seemed to be torn between staring at Draco and blushing or looking away and blushing. Then he started to stammer, but no one could tell as all the others were stammering as well.

"Going with you?"

"To Malfoy Manor?"

"For Christmas?"

"At Malfoy Manor?"

"Of course." Drey had freed her self from her brother and had moved over to Bill. "You're family, why wouldn't you be with us at Christmas?"

Despite them having every reason for not being too sure about where they were going to be for the holidays, Bill, Harry, Seamus and all of the others began to feel remarkably stupid.

"Well, you never said anything, we didn't know."

There was flabbergasted silence for a few moments, during which incredulous eyes bored through the Gryffindors. Finally eyes rolled, heads shook, hands flew up into the air before the tired packers managed to haul themselves to a standing position and trudged up to the gallery, Drey and Draco issuing orders.

"Pansy you take Hermione's things and I'll get Ginny's."

"Blaise you can pack for Seamus, I'll sort Harry's things. Vince get Charlie's stuff, Greg take Bill's. Blaise you'll probably be the fastest can you get Neville's things, anyone who finishes can help him."

One by one they all disappeared into different rooms, Drey poked her head out for a second though and spoke to the bemused crowd on the sofas.

"If you lot wouldn't mind making yourself the slightest bit useful, could you shrink those cases? We didn't think we'd have quite so much stuff so we didn't ask for Mother to send us one of the largest carriages. The one we asked for should be fit all of us, but the luggage will need to be about half it's size, so if you wouldn't mind."

Seeing no one was moving she added:

"Come on people chop chop. We've only got half an hour you know. Honestly, thinking we were going to leave you here."

The last sentence was muttered quietly under her breath as she headed off to do Ginny's packing. Once again the Gryffindors were left in the echoing silence of the suite, a quiet only broken by various thumps, thuds and exclamations, and after a few minutes, quiet laughter that came from the two oldest Weasleys. Ignoring any strange looks they were receiving the two brothers started shrinking luggage, with everyone else gradually joining in. By the time the Slytherins emerged fifteen minutes later, along with yet more trunks, everything was ready. A few levitation charms eradicated the need for anyone to try and carry the bags, and with a bit of chivvying and chiding the Slytherins finally managed to get everyone to the main door, through the crowds of kids who were staring in shock and wonder at something outside the gates.

The crowds parted like water as they walked past, and the Gryffindors had to forcibly stop themselves from stopping and gaping at what they saw. They knew the twins had asked for a carriage to come and pick them up, something the Slytherins had never done in the past five years, but this was unbelievable. Two coachmen in a back and silver livery jumped down from the cab at the front and took charge of all the luggage, carefully loading it onto the hold at the back. Another man in an identical livery opened the black door emblazoned with the Malfoy family crest, holding out a hand to help the girls into the plush interior. Not a word was spoken as all of this took place; the Gryffindors knew that their friends were using this as an opportunity to show off their power, not for any specific purpose, just to do it, and remind the Ron Weasleys of the world, who were staring at the black carriage and pure white winged horses with loathing, that they were the one's in charge. After making sure that everyone was settled Draco knocked on the partition to the cap where the driver and coachmen sat and said.

"Lets get going boys, we've got some guests that Mother in anxious to meet, and you know it's never a good idea to keep her waiting."

Hey everyone, sorry it's been a while.

SaintEmo: sorry it's been a while, glad you like it so far, and I hope you like this chapter too.

Morena Evensong: that's what I was trying to do with those two, and I'm sorry about that bit where I switched perspectives, I thought I'd put a line in but apparently I hadn't, but I have now. I hope you like this chapter.

Please review everyone, I love getting them. :)


	20. Welcome Home

I only own Dracaena

* * *

"This is amazing!"

Ginny was bouncing up and down and the others were scarcely less excited, the Slytherins were their usual selves, maybe a bit more eager than normal, but the enthusiasm of their friends was infectious. Bill and Charlie were trying their best to look cool, after all they were the oldest two there, and they had girls to impress, so they couldn't be like the others. Shoving their way to the window to see the scenery fly by, although they did use their height advantage to look out over the others' heads, some things just couldn't be missed.

It was a sight though; the horses weren't galloping on the ground so much as over it, the unnaturally smooth gait made for an incredibly smooth ride. For a while they Slytherins had attempted to talk to their friends, but it soon became impossible. Normally, despite the magical speed of the horses, it would have taken several hours to reach Malfoy Manor, but because of Narcissa's desperate (and extremely vocal) desire's to meet the court and their friends, they were travelling a way known to only a few select pure blood families, the really ancient names.

Using this method they passed through a plane of existence just slightly out of phase with their own. Where the world they lived in was filled with sharp edges and bright colours, this world was…smoky and gentle, all pale greens and blues. There were no buildings, just smooth ground for the horses to travel over, so a trip that would have taken four hours through the normal world, lasted only one and a half in the travel world.

There was a barely perceptible jolt as the carriage passed from one plane to the other, and the visitors to the Manor all scrambled to the window for their first glimpse of the legendary mansion. Even Bill and Charlie gave up their cool façade and lifted themselves up so they could see over the younger heads, leaving the Slytherins to laugh at their friends' excitement.

But the noise died down immediately as the Manor came into view. It was an impressive sight normally, solid grey stones, high stained glass windows, towers reaching high into the sky. But in winter, especially at Christmas, it was amazing.

There was snow on the ground and the building, making the Manor look like a castle in a fairy tale; trees were all around, some still green but not many. But the beautiful scenery wasn't all, each window was illuminated with candlelight, which on some windows cast the multicoloured shadows of the stained windows onto the snow. The glass figures wandering from one window to another, like wizarding portraits, but the Malfoys were the only family with living windows.

The carriage drew to a stop on the gravel driveway before the heavy closed doors; the liveried footmen jumped down and one opened the doors to the carriage while the other two sung open the massive doors and stood to attention by them, revealing Narcissa Malfoy as she hurried across the foyer.

Narcissa's blonde hair was streaming behind her as she hurried across to the group. She wasn't wearing normal wizarding robes, but a long dark green dress with a black shawl wrapped around her shoulders. All extremely simple lines, but she made it look as if it was the most expensive designer outfit in the world, which it might well have been, she was a Malfoy after all.

"Dragons."

Her cry rang out over the frosty air, and, abandoning their Malfoy dignity, the twins rushed over to her. For the next few minutes they were a mass of pale skin and expensive fabric as they hugged. Draco's return didn't usually lead to such an exuberant display, even when Lucius was away, but Drey was there, and her return had given her twin and her mother back the liveliness that had been taken away from them.

Eventually they broke apart and the Narcissa turned to the other four teenagers who'd sidled forwards, and they were welcomed in much the same manner as her children had been. The whole group were made to stand by each other and she went through the motions every happy mother does when she sees her children after a long time, saying how they have grown (particularly Blaise, for she considered the other four her children, although she scarcely had a chance to show it), remarking on their colourful hair. Swallowing the remarks she could have made about how the bright colours were unbecoming to young purebloods.

While all that had been taking place the others had left the carriage and had huddled together, awed by the surroundings they found themselves in. Before now their friends status had been quite distant, known only intellectually, and when they wanted to produce a particular effect. But now they were surrounded with the physical proof, and it was very unnerving.

They had been watching the reunion with something approaching incredulity, no matter what their friends told them, Narcissa Malfoy still appeared to them to be the snobbish women Harry had met at the Quidditch World Cup. The laughing, smiling, open woman before them didn't quite match up with their preconception.

Harry was standing in the middle of their little group, looking at the reunion over Ginny's head. Draco was in his mother's arms, laughing and smiling with Her nad Drey, and while a part of him wondered what it would be like if he was able to do that with his mother, the more dominant part of his brain was wondering what it would be like if he could hold Draco in his arms, he still had dreams of that drunken night, and he was trying to build up the courage to talk to his friend, and see if the blonde remembered and felt the same (or he was building up his courage to face complete and utter humiliation and all consuming embarrassment). He had been planning on doing it when Draco first came back after the holidays, in the first flush of pleasure at seeing him again after so long, but Christmas could be a good time, he could always blame it on a bit too much Christmas cheer, maybe he could even find some mistletoe.

He was dragged out of his musings when a clear, beautiful voice belonging to the eldest lady of the house drifted over to them.

"And why are you all hiding from me?"

Her left eyebrow was quirked upwards, eyes, a clear blue not like the silver orbs of her children, were focused on the huddled group, and seeing their acute discomfort, decided to take pity and not tease them anymore.

"You must be Bill."

Walking over she took his hands and pulled him away from his brother and the nervous knot of bodies. The red-hired wizard was several inches tller that her, but felt about two inches tall before her scrutinizing gaze. She looked his up and down several times before turning back to her daughter, and saying:

"You were right darling, very interesting."

Then turning back to him she scared him even more:

"I've heard a lot about you Mr Weasley."

Again her eyebrow quirked upwards, along with her mouth, and she gave the impression of knowing a lot more than she let on, but didn't give away anything of what she'd heard. And Drey only shrugged and smiled when Bill glared at her after her mother had moved on.

"And you must be Seamus."

She performed the same actions with him, smiling over her shoulder at Blaise. And so she made her way through the group, unable to help smiling at Neville's bright red face and helpless stuttering, Hermione's embarrassment, and Ginny's rather obvious fear at meeting such a notable person. Harry was surprised when she came to him, he'd been expecting her eyes to flick upwards to his scar, everyone's did, especially those in the important wizarding circles, but Narcissa never looked.

"Oh Merlin I'm sorry. Let's get inside."

Narcissa's attention had been caught by the shivering bodies of Ginny and Hermione and without further ado started to usher everyone inside, when they asked about their luggage she said it had been taken in by the servants and they could unpack it later.

The interior of the Manor looked just as much like a fairy tale as the exterior, there was a dark green Christmas tree by the stairs, white candles were floating just above the branches, illuminating the beautiful decorations, red and green tear drops, gold stars, it looked better than all the Christmas trees Harry, Hermione and Seamus had seen in department stores, absolute perfection, every ball ball and rope of tinsel in it's proper place.

"Do you want to see your rooms now, or should we show you around the Manor first?"

The still tight knit cluster conferred with silent glances for a few seconds before nominating Harry to be their spokes person and say:

"See around the Manor."

Narcissa, her children, and their friends grinned and while the twins moved over to a set of double doors leading off the foyer, the others chivvied the rest along behind them. Swinging the doors open in a very unnecessary, and quite frightening to the bewildered teenagers.

"In that case."

"Welcome to Malfoy Manor."

* * *

Nikki: sorry it's been so long but I had my GCSEs, and then I had to go to a wedding and we're going on holiday tomorrow, so although it's quite shot I wanted to update it. So glad you like it and I hope you like this chapter too.

Morena Evensong: glad you still like it, hope you like this one too.

Haylz010: hope you like this chapter.

Silverone3: hope it lived up to your expectations

SaintEmo: hope you like this chapter.

Hey everyone, I'm really sorry it's been so long but I had exams then a wedding and then manic packing (something I'm very bad at and absolutely hate), and I wanted to update another story of mine that I was stuck on and finally figured out how to get it where I wanted to go.

Anyway, please review this chapter, please:)


	21. Day 1 Down

All I own is Drey, unfortunately

* * *

"So, what do you think so far?"

The resulting babble almost made Narcissa sorry that she'd asked the question, but at least it was positive babble.

"It's great."

"It's so beautiful."

"The library is fantastic."

And so it went on, and on, and on. In five minutes they seemed to want to make up for all the silence during their tour. Some muffled sounds had emerged when they walked through the gallery, and were subjected to the gazes of every member of the Malfoy family from the last three hundred years (the older portraits were in a separate part of the house), and Hermione had been ecstatic when she walked into the library with its vaulted ceilings and multitude of books, but for some reason she had toned it down and just been content with spinning around in circles pointing at everything and covering her mouth to stop from screaming out loud (though why exactly she was trying to hide it all was still a bit of a mystery).

Unable to resist the temptation, when they'd quietened down Pansy said:

"So you like it then?"

And so started off another enthusiastic round of 'praise the Manor'.

It continued in that way for another ten minutes before the Malfoys grew tired of hearing the same statements over and over again. You'd think that if people were going to enthuse this much about something, they wouldn't say the same thing every time they opened their mouth. Not a single one had commented on the portraits in the gallery, seemingly uncomfortable around them, not even a smile for the portraits of the twins.

A piercing whistle finally broke through the babble, and every eye turned to the house elf who was just lowering his fingers from his lips.

"Luncheon is served."

And with a crack he disappeared.

"Oh good, I had it held backing case you all wanted to unpack or take a tour of the house first."

With that Narcissa disappeared through the open doors leaving the teenagers to follow along behind. Drey easily threaded her arm through Bill's and the two followed her mother, while ignoring the dark haired boy blushes, Draco followed her actions with Harry, then Vince and Greg. After a slight pause, Charlie and Pansy headed towards each other at the same time and swiftly followed suite. Blaise and Seamus were next, only being delayed this long because Seamus was transfixed by the moving figures on a glass vase. After many shy looks, blushes and feet shuffling Neville sidled over to Ginny and did his best to control the forest fire erupting in his cheeks while she hid her small hand in his larger one. Hermione had been standing around awkwardly, knowing that all the others were paired off and wondering if she would have to walk in on her own, and really not wanting to, Merlin that would be embarrassing!

She was broken out of her thoughts by a shy cough and found herself staring at a pink face and a gallantly out held arm. Neville was staring at her shyly, Ginny perfectly matching his expression. Although both faces were wreathed in smiles when she took the outstretched hand and the three headed through the open doors.

* * *

"Come on Harry, you can't sleep down here."

"Watch me."

The words were muffled in a large cushion, Harry was lying face down, stretched along one of the plush sofas, his ankles and lower legs resting on Draco's cotton clad thighs. Bill was settled deep into an armchair, with Drey huddled on top of him, those four were the only ones left downstairs, everyone else had poured themselves into bed after a splendiferous five course dinner. Stories had been told about everyone's lives, anecdotes from childhood, Seamus came out with some tales that ad everyone n stitches, as did Blaise and the twins. Then Bill and Drey told stories about their time in Egypt together, a subject they hadn't really touched on before, the separation was still a sore point with Draco, and the transition between Egypt and Hogwarts and the break-up still held bad memories for Drey and Bill, but tonight they'd had a good time and all the embarrassing stories, most of which were about Bill, came streaming out.

The quartet had been indulging in rich chocolates and sweets, and were consequently feeling rather sluggish, instead of the raucous chattering that had taken place earlier in the evening the conversation was more mellow, memories more intimate, voices softer. Drey had long ago acquainted her boyfriend with Draco's feelings towards Harry, and as the two of them watched the weeks pass they noticed the frequent looks and touches that passed between the two. Harry was often found staring at the back of a blonde head, looking as though he was trying to read the thoughts floating around inside. They had been spending a lot of time together recently, doing their potions project, homework, quidditch practice, there were very few moments when they weren't together anymore. A far cry from the way they had acted over the last several years.

It was painfully obvious to the two observers, and Charlie and the members of the original court what feelings they had for each other. The others, Hermione, Neville and Ginny had been a bit slower about picking it up, probably because they were so used to seeing him in the role of infallible Golden Boy. Seamus knew, his own experiences with Blaise over the years made him able to recognise the signs of unrequited love. But they'd figure it out, their friends, Drey in particular wouldn't let it go on for too long, although they should be able to figure it out themselves, they were fairly close as it was.

Throughout the evening Drey and Bill had watched the other two, seen how close they were getting, and as the crowd dissipated and everyone went to bed, they watched how comfortable they were with each other. They moved around each other as though they were in a choreographed dance, it was just one they hadn't figured out that they knew yet.

"I'm gonna head up. Night Draco, Harry."

Kissing her brother and friend on their heads Drey headed out the door, closely followed by Bill as he echoed her sentiments and waved goodnight. Draco stared at the door for a while after it closed, then shifted his gaze back to the boy across his lap. He was snoring very softly, the side of his face that wasn't pressed into the cushions was dead to the world, lashes resting on smooth skin, mouth relaxed but slightly open, dead to the world.

Shifting his legs just made the sleeping beauty shift with him, so Draco now had the room to lie down, curved against Harry's back, or move and wake him up. It didn't take him long to decide which he was going to do, for several reasons, it wasn't just that he wanted to lie down next to him…honest.

A whispered word extinguished all the light except for the slowly dying fire, and for a long time Draco watched the orange light flicker over Harry's face, and very lightly he traced the planes of the sleeping face, cheekbones, nose, eyebrows, savouring every forbidden touch. And gradually, he fell asleep, arms curled at his side. But later when the room was only illuminated by a few nearly burned out embers they shifted, Harry moved around so he was facing Draco, his arm shifted over the blonde boys waist, and later, when there was no light left at all, Draco moved, his body pressed in closer to Harry and his leg slid in between the other boy's two. And they remained that way until they were woken in the morning.

* * *

"Sshh you'll wake them up."

The whispers slowly seeped into the boys' sleep muddled brains, but they were like baby tadpoles trying to fight their way through treacle.

Draco was perhaps slightly more alert than Harry, living with Lucius Malfoy did wonders for your levels of alertness, but ever since his father had been arrested he'd let his guard down. And although there was no small level of animosity towards them at school, great honking piles of it in fact, there was no danger towards the twelve of them in their suite, so they could safely relax while they slept. And after Harry had told them about his foray into the Slytherin common room all those years ago, security had been beefed up, recognition spells were imbedded in the walls of the Slytherin common room, no one, animal, vegetable or mineral, could get in unless they belonged without a magic proof cage forming around them and a siren going off, only audible to Slytherins and the Court of course, and Snape. They'd tested it out on Mrs Norris and it had been absolutely hilarious, even Snape had been in stitches, a sight that had just made the ex-Gryffindors laugh even harder.

And all of those circumstances had conspired to make Draco sleep a lot more heavily than he usually did, and the sumptuous meal he'd had the night before hadn't helped, so he didn't wake until it was too late and the telltale click and flash had already gone off.

He started awake sitting up abruptly, flinging himself over Harry so he was holding himself up by his arms, one on either side of his face, and found himself first staring into sleepy green eyes, then after loosing focus for a few seconds, (but who could blame him when faced with an image like that) he looked up. And found himself staring at eleven smirking human faces, three smiling house elves, and five different cameras. Harry had seen them as well and so at the same time they both went:

"Oh fuck!"

But when Harry moved, trying to hide his flaming face, he jerked one of Draco's arms, making the other boy collapse onto his chest. And amidst more clicks, flashes and giggles, those unmistakeable two words came out of the same two mouths once again. Although the tone may have been slightly different.

* * *

"Will you please stop looking at us like that!"

Pansy's eyes flicked up to her friend's steady silver ones before sliding straight back down, successfully intimidated.

During her time at the Manor Narcissa had experienced some very uncomfortable meals, but none of them compared to this. Silence of all different kinds permeated the room, awkward, accusing, threatening, uncomfortable, the list went on and on. The blank, aggressive stares that her son and Harry were sending to any of the others who even so much as breathed too loudly were quite…terrifying…and she'd been on the end of a lot of glares in her time.

She knew what was going on, Drey had told her earlier, and she understood completely why Draco and Harry would be angry, upset and embarrassed, of course she also thought it was absolutely hysterical and had already made sure her daughter would give her several copies of each picture. She just had one minor concern, if this is how two reacted to a few compromising photographs, how would the whole crowd react to the surprise she had for them after breakfast.

* * *

"Give me those photos!"

Gritted teeth, flaming eyes, even paler than normal skin, yep, Draco was mad.

Harry was standing by his side, managing to look angry but not quite as threatening as his friend.

"Forget it Drac, these are going where neither of you can find them, they're our insurance policies for if you ever start acting…contrary to our wants."

Flinging her nose up in the air Drey finally ended the argument and stalked off, somehow managing to make Draco and Harry feel as though she were the aggrieved party and they had been the ones to upset her. Avery useful talent, and one she had used on Bill many times in their relationship, which explained the sympathetic look he shot towards the two younger boys.

"Dragons. Children. Could you all come to the foyer please?"

The magically enhanced voice echoed through the mansion in the same way as a tannoy announcement would. So they all trooped off, the two models staring balefully at the others' backs.

* * *

"Narcissa stop worrying, I'm sure everything will be just fine."

There was a distinct note of forced, fake, joviality in the visitors' voice, and there were several unbelieving snorts from behind her.

Narcissa didn't reply, in a very un-Malfoyish display she way chewing on her bottom lip and ringing her hands together, house elves who had taken the visitors' luggage up to their rooms were clustered around the balcony, wanting to see the moment when those who were already there met those who had just arrived. It was going to be explosive!

The sound of laughter and joking voices reached the foyer before the teenagers did, and when they did arrive they were all in a cluster, gathered around each other, unconsciously falling into the pattern they wandered around school in. Even then it wasn't a conscious decision, just a way to protect themselves against the hexes that very often came their way, usually from a stuck up, pig headed, egotistical red head (no offence to Bill, Charlie or Ginny obviously).

But when the giggling crowd reached their destination and looked at Narcissa the laughter stopped, smiles dripped off faces and were replaced by grim stares or glares, wands were reached for and Draco was holding out hands that had miniature lightning bolts dancing between his fingers, while Drey had fire decorating the slender digits.

"What the hell is he doing here!"

"Get out of our house!"

Loud, angry exclamations and recriminations continued to pour forth, while the object of their hatred stood there stolidly, growing pinker and pinker.

"Be quiet!"

Narcissa's scream ripped through the air, effectively shutting everyone up, partly because of the force and partly because of the shock of hearing her scream. While everyone was recovering, and the lady herself was getting her breath back, the object of the courts' hatred stepped forward and with a few words managed to make himself despised even more.

"Anyone would think you weren't happy to see me."

And Ron Weasley managed a pale of imitation of a Malfoy smirk when he saw the impotent fury on each and ever face before him.

* * *

Hi everyone, sorry it's been so long but I just haven't been able to get to my laptop, sorry, hope this is liked though, please review everyone :)

Morena Evensong: glad you liked it, and sorry it's been so long, everything's got a bit hectic recently, but I hope you like this chapter too.

Nicole: sorry it's been so long but I hope you like this update.

Harrysloverdracosangel: so glad, hope you like the rest of it too.

Silverone3: happy birthday, sorry it's been a while; hope you liked this one too.


	22. New Arrivals: part 1

All I own is Dracaena.

* * *

"Please darlings. I know you're angry but just listen to me, please."

Two pairs of sullen silver eyes gazed back at her, with no hint of forgiveness or understanding hidden in their depths. Narcissa had been stating her case for half an hour now, enumerating the dozens of perfectly valid reasons she had for inviting the Weasleys spend Christmas with them, despite the fact that he had made the lives of his two best friends, his sister and his oldest brothers' lives hell for the last few months.

"You've welcomed three of them into your court, your family, so you shouldn't miss out on friendships with the others because one of them is a bit..."

"Juvenile."

"Irritating."

"Absurd."

"Evil."

"Treacherous."

"ENOUGH!"

"Dracaena you are in a relationship with a member of that family which means you must be on good relations with the others, it's simple good manners. And do you really want to separate your friends from their family when you know how much it hurts."

The unforgiving silence shifted into a slightly more guilt ridden and thoughtful silence, giving the chance to Narcissa to have her final shot.

"Besides, do you really want to fall down to his level and acting the way he thinks Malfoys act?

That did it. Dead eyes filled with silver fire and as they walked out of the room their mother could practically see the cogs turning as they planned the world's most unforgettable Christmas for Ron.

* * *

"First term down boys, you enjoying it?"

"Yes dad."

"A few hiccups but it's going alright."

The last was said with a pointed look in Ron's direction that made him even pinker. His colour had only risen since Draco, Drey and Narcissa had disappeared for a 'little chat' (Merlin only knew how that was going), and Pansy, Blaise, Vince and Greg were taking bets on where the first blood vessel was going to explode. Pansy was banking on his forehead, Blaise was going for underneath his right eye, Vince was going for the right eye as a whole because of the way it was bulging, and Greg though it would be the top half of his right ear.

While they were placing bets, Neville, Harry, Hermione, Seamus and the three Weasleys had been giving one word answers to the increasingly desperate questions being asked by Mr and Mrs Weasley. Although they had made their peace with her that day in Dumbledore's office they hadn't missed the complete lack of communication since then. Ginny had sent them several letters, as had Harry, and occasionally Hermione, but none of them had ever received an answer, from Molly, Arthur, Percy or the twins. After two months of being ignored they'd decided that, like their family they'd show respect in lip service only, no more than that.

"Not very good hosts are they, running off like that."

Ginny had always known her brother was stupid, but that was surpassing even the generous limits she had set for his intelligence. Even their parents and Percy looked shocked at his audacity, insulting Malfoys in Malfoy Manor was stupid! Even when they weren't around to hear the insult.

Blaise, Vince, Greg and Pansy had taken threatening steps forward at that slight, not just the words but the tone as well, and the fact that it was just that one step too far and they wanted to do something to this smug bastard who seemed to think that he was better than they were.

"Vince, Blaise, back off for a minute."

Draco slid out of the shadows, Drey just behind him. The looks they gave Ron were enough to freeze the fires of hell, flat silver eyes bored into the Ron's brown ones, and no one was surprised when Ron backed down first. Narcissa swept in just after Ron's head fell and he moved back a few steps, as far away as he could get from the twins without them knowing he was running away.

The Lady Malfoy glossed over the tension in her foyer with the ease of a true society woman and invited her guests to join the family in the sun room while the house elves took care of their luggage.

As the group moved off through the corridors, Mr and Mrs Weasley making a brave attempt at conversation by asking about the portraits and other object d'art that decorated the Manor. In the tried and true manner of good hosts the three Malfoys responded politely, with Blaise and Pansy joining in at times. The rest of the court clustered at behind the Weasley clan, herding them along like sheepdogs, Fred and George looked as though they wanted to start a conversation with Ginny and their brothers at one point, but Neville, Hermione and all the others crowded around them, effectively cutting off any communication.

The seating arrangements were very much the same when they arrived in the sun room. The three adults sat at one end of the room, with Ron close by his mother, Drey, Draco, Blaise and Pansy nearby, all looking ready to have a polite chat anhd flay Ron alive. Then came the other three non-court Weasleys, all looking uncomfortable and out of place, and then the rest of the court, with Vince, Greg and Seamus forming a living barrier between the Weasleys and the ones they really wanted to talk to.

The sun room was aptly named, built entirely of spelled glass from the outside it appeared to be made of the same grey stone as the rest of the Manor, glass and sunlight were considered to 'light' for the Malfoy homestead. The roof acted like a prism so everything inside was painted in rainbows; there were stained glass images on the walls, figures and plants that moved like the portraits and windows. Glass gardeners tended to painted flowers and glass lords and ladies meandered through the waving fronds, occasionally looking at the group seated inside the walls.

Narcissa and Molly continued with their valiant attempts at small talk, Mr Weasley had dropped out after five minutes, unable to cope with the suffocating silence. The frequent questions that they addressed to one of other of the teenagers were met with monosyllabic responses, unfailingly polite from ex-Slytherins, polite but confused (especially Neville and Seamus) from everyone. The twins and co. were doing as Narcissa said and not falling to Ron's level and following their instincts, which told them to disembowel him with a rusty spoon after pulling out every single hair on his body with hot tweezers. In a brief conference as they made their way to the sun room Drey and Draco had told every a few of their court not to let Ron get to them, and the message had been passed on to the others.

They spent an interminable amount of time in this fashion; eventually the court ventured into replies that were longer than two words. And as Harry and the others grew more comfortable they even managed a few words in the general direction of Fred and George, no one else though.

But all good things must come to an end, and all too soon a house-elf popped in, announcing in her high-pitched voice that all the luggage had been unpacked and would the guests like to freshen up before luncheon was served. The relief was palpable, the sighs almost like a hurricane. As the Weasleys filed past in order to go to their rooms the court pointedly ignored the eager-to-please smiles from Mrs Weasley and her husband directed at their children (and those they considered to be her children), their faces dropping when their smiles weren't returned. Percy and the twins received two quick grins from their older brothers, and a few gentle smiles from the other ex-Gryffindors, the Slytherins had decided that they may be polite; and they may acknowledge the necessity of getting on with this family. But they were still Gryffindors and traitors to the pureblood, their lions had something special about them, this lot could jump off a cliff as long as it didn't upset their friends too much. Ron attempted a sneer on his way past, but jumped back as a small fire-bolt shot at his shoelaces.

After the red-headed procession hade departed, taking their see-saw emotions with them, the court crowded around Narcissa. With everyone trying to ask their questions:

"Why did you invite them?"

"It's Christmas Narcissa, they're going to ruin it, and can you imagine them on Christmas Eve!"

Of course pretty much all of the questions came from Blaise, Pansy, Greg and Vince. The twins were sitting back and watching their mother having to answer perfectly valid questions with (as they saw it) very flimsy excuses. The others weren't comfortable enough with the icy blonde to interrogate her just yet. They just sat at the back looking plaintive and dejected, with various hands being clasped together and various big brothers hugging their little sisters. The gloomy silence soon spread from their little corner to the rooms other occupants and they found seven pairs of curious and caring eyes gazing at them. Harry was the first to speak, eyes never leaving Draco:

"We've gone from being miserable over Christmas, to the best Christmas of our lives and now we're back to square one again. Ironic isn't it."

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I am so sorry it's been so long since I updated, I just got overloaded with schoolwork and a whole lot of other junk that I don't notice until it hits me on the back of my head!

I apologise repeatedly and please, please, review!

Karenelaine: She does have good reason, and it will be explained more clearly later. But she knows that her daughter is dating a Weasley and so it's only polite really to be on good terms with the rest. Hope you like this chapter too.

Sarah: sorry it's been so long, hope you liked it.

SerenityMelody: glad you like it, I hope you like this chapter too.

Haylz010: sorry it's been so long, hope you liked this chapter.

MidnightsRose: really glad you like it, hope you liked this one too.

JacobimVonStyluss: sorry it's been so long, hope you liked it.

Silverone3: I think it's safe to say Ron doesn't want to be friends again:) Hope you like this chapter.


	23. New Arrivals: part 2

I only own Drey.

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"Charlie. Do we have to do this?"

The young man winced as his sister managed to extend his name into a long, and fairly high pitched, whine. The girl was lagging behind her brothers, reluctance visible with every step she made as they headed towards the suite of rooms that housed their family. With what Seamus had termed the one sensible action in the entire mess, Narcissa had put them in rooms in the west wing of the house, far away from the others, and Ginny seemed determined to turn a walk that should have lasted just a few minutes into a half hour meander through corridors. It was the fifteenth time she'd said that, or some variation of the same theme. Bill had given up on her and gone charging ahead, then he waited for them at a corner to keep his brother company, he walked at Charlie's speed for a while, then charged ahead again, mumbling under his breath about annoying little sisters and his legs being too long to walk that slow. Charlie was nearly ready to join him and leave Ginny to get lost wandering around the Manor, but he was more patient than his older brother, and he had absolutely no intention of letting Ginny get out of this meeting.

Narcissa had suggested, in a steel coated in velvet tone, that the three Weasleys should go and get the rest of their family for lunch, give them a bit of quality time together. She had suggested that Harry join them as Molly considered him her eighth child, but through a fabulous piece of fast talking he'd managed to avoid it, saying something about how important family was and how he wouldn't want to intrude etc etc. The brothers were planning on talking with him later that night about a little concept called sticking together in times of crises and uncomfortable reunions.

If it was possible Ginny seemed to be getting even slower (she'd already been going at a snail's pace, at this rate she'd soon be walking backwards) the closer they got to what she referred to as 'the gateway to an awful, hellish Christmas. She had taken the silent treatment from their family the worst, because she was the only girl she'd always been really close to her mother, and as the baby of the family everyone doted on her. Even though she didn't regret her decision _at all_, and she hated what her family had done to the court, she missed having all her brothers and her parents around her.

Finally, after Charlie had grabbed Ginny and literally pulled her along with him, the door came insight. It seemed innocuous enough, dark wood, oak probably, with three rectangular patterns leading up from the base, and an inset square at the top. Set in a dark green wall, the door looked the same as many of the others in the Manor; it opened with a bronze door handle which formed a loose wave as the tip scrolled under the body of the handle. It seemed simple enough, but behind this door was either happiness, the chance of a family reforming with new members over the Christmas season, or heartache as the Weasley family split further apart.

* * *

"Do…do you mind if I join you?"

Percy's head appeared around the door leading into the twins' bedroom. This in itself was quite a rarity, at home he avoided the twins as much as possible, their 'everything is a joke' philosophy was the polar opposite to his 'everything is linked, if I don't tie my shoes properly now I'll never get a promotion when I'm 35'. It never used to be that way, when they were little they had got on well, it was just when Percy got to Hogwarts that he started separating from the rest of the family, the more responsibility he got and the more exams he had, the stiffer he became, especially where the exuberant Fred and George were concerned.

"Come on in."

Again, that was odd. Fred and George disliked Percy's stuffy nature as much as he did theirs. The fact that the three of them were getting along, in a pale imitation of how they used to, was testament to the gravity of the situation.

"Are they still fighting?"

Fred and George were sitting on the floor in the gap between their queen-size beds, they were so close together that nothing of the pale blue wall was visible between them. Narcissa had obviously heard of the exceptionally strong bond between the Weasley twins and borne it in mind when setting up sleeping arrangements. It was a kind touch that they hadn't expected but did appreciate, most people they visited (which wasn't many granted, but there were family and friends from school) split them up, if they even thought about it they would have considered the boys too old to want to still share a bedroom, but Fred and George were strongly of the opinion that they weren't too old and never would be, as far as they were concerned Fred was George, George was Fred and they came as a complete package.

Both of them were feeling the divisions in their family, but possibly not as much as Percy, they were one unit and could function on their own, but Percy had always been close to Ginny. They both considered themselves the odd ones out and so gravitated towards each other, although that bond had been fading since Ginny came to Hogwarts. But despite the fact that they inhabited their own world most of the time, they were close to the rest of their family, Bill especially as he had loved practical jokes as much as they did, and it was Bill who had started them on their road of mischief.

"Yes. It doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon either. Ron's going strong, Mum's getting angrier, and Dad's just collapsed in the armchair. He looks exhausted."

In a very un-percylike display he collapsed on the floor infront of the twins and leaned against Fred's bed.

"They'll have to stop fairly soon, it'll be time for 'luncheon' in a minute and some House Elf'll be coming to fetch us, I bet you."

There was a definite slur on luncheon, and the look on Fred's face said exactly what he thought of people who said 'luncheon'.

The doorknob started pulsating with a pale green light, and a hollow knock reverberated through the room, the creepy sound made the three boys jump and look around wildly to see what the hell was going on. A second later the tired and ragged face of Arthur Weasley appeared around the door.

"Someone's here boys, it's time for lunch."

Percy suddenly found the thick, cream carpet incredibly interesting. He and Arthur hadn't been getting on all that well recently; it had nothing to do with Ginny, Bill and Charlie. Percy had got a job at the Ministry to make his father proud; he'd wanted to do everything as best as he possibly could so his Dad would be proud of him. But his efforts just seemed to distance him from the rest of his family until it became hard to look at any of them for a long period of time, never mind hold a conversation with them the way he used to, and the way the rest of the family could with each other.

"We're coming Dad."

The three of them stood up together, and Percy hung back as he let the twins walk in front.

In the main room Ron was standing by a window, sulking, Molly was standing by an armchair, twisting her hands together nervously, occasionally stopping to tug at her cardigan; the three brothers took up their positions by the wall, while Arthur went to open the door.

But when he pulled back the heavy wooden door, the family didn't see the house elf they expected, or one of the human staff it was rumoured that the Malfoy family had cursed into serving them, instead he found Bill, Charlie and Ginny standing in a row in the corridor.

* * *

"Hi Dad."

"Hey."

"Hello."

Ginny's greeting was muffled as she was practically speaking to the floor, it had taken a nudge from Bill to get her to utter even that much.

"Narcissa sent us to get you for lunch."

Bill was speaking, as he was the eldest brother he had been voted in (by Charlie and Ginny) to do the speaking, while Charlie was the more laidback brother, Bill was more responsible, forceful, and the big brother so it was his job to protect his younger siblings from things they didn't want to do.

But he didn't look so laid back when a snort resounded from the window, and something that sounded like 'Weasleys obeying Malfoys', and then another, dismissive/disgusted snort.

Charlie watched as his three other brothers flinched, almost in unison, he watched as his mother groaned, almost whimpered, and his father seemed to swell up and then deflate. He watched as his brother walked over to Ron, stood looming over him and said, in a low voice that was one hell of a lot scarier than his usual shouting fits.

"We came because Narcissa _asked _us to, she didn't order us to do anything. We did what she asked because she is a nice woman and we respect her, she's the mother of my girlfriend, she's the mother of one of my best friends. We came because of that, not because we wanted anything to do with you."

Ron sputtered for a moment while Bill turned around and went to walk away, but before he took one step Ron found his voice.

"Bill have you lost your mind you…"

"Ron for Gods sake shut up!"

Surprisingly enough the outburst came from Percy, and that was just a shock to shut Ron up.

In the ensuing silence Fred and George attempted what they usually did so well.

"Someone mention lunch."

"We're starving, aren't we Perce."

Charlie and Bill looked at them, and Ginny flicked her eyes towards them before staring at the floor again.

It wasn't much, in fact it was miniscule but it was a start at least, and with that thought in mind Bill led them down to lunch. And what a wonderful lunch it was going to be.

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Sorry it's been a while, but everything got really busy and then I had revision and exams and everything. Anyway, please review the chapter, and I will try to get the next chapter up sooner, honest.

Sarah: sorry it's been a while, hope you like this chapter.

Draeconin: Not that I don't appreciate your review because all reviews are good, but where in this story has Voldemort been mentioned. Not all Harry Potter stories have to focus on him, and Harry isn't one of the most insignificant characters I just haven't got to his part yet. As you won't be 'back for more' this is probably pointless, I just felt like saying it.


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